Time for another one of John's patented Quick-and-to-the-
Pointless Movie Reviews(tm).

Today's movie:  Thirteen Days

You know, when I hear "Kevin Costner" and "13 days" in the same 
sentence, I normally think about one of two things......

A.  How long "Waterworld" lasted in theaters, or
B.  The actual running time of "The Postman"

But now Kevin's come out with something totally new: a movie that 
features him in the starring role with a comically bad accent!  Wow!
I asked the manager of the theater if I could just send my six bucks 
directly to Kevin and go home without watching, but he wouldn't have 
any of that.  The upside is that I saw it at a Regal Cinema, so the 
actual movie seemed far better when it was juxtaposed next to the 
Annoying Little Girl Who Lip Syncs To Jack Palance That Everyone In 
The Universe Including Her Mother Wants To Stab Repeatedly, reminding 
me not to litter or talk during the movie.

And I'm not kidding about the bad accent.  It was a ridiculously 
failed attempt at a Boston-type accent.  It vaguely reminded me of 
Mayor Quimby from "The Simpsons", except his was far less accurate 
and nowhere near as dignified.

The movie itself is a historical docudrama centered on President 
Kennedy and his staff's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
(I realize most of you out there graduated from a Florida high school 
and therefore have no idea what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, but 
bear with me....)  One thing I learned that I didn't know is that 
pretty much every major decision during the whole thing was basically 
made by some guy named "Ken" who was the "Special Assistant" to the 
President.  Conveniently, this was the role Costner played.  How bout 
that?  I always thought a "Special Assistant" to the President was 
the guy who gets his coffee.  But then, I thought Robin Hood was of 
English descent, so what do I know?

Overall, the film is a mildly interesting piece of pseudo-history, 
but it fails to capture the true terror of how close the world 
actually came to nuclear war.  There was never any suspense built up, 
and it had nothing to do with the fact that we know how it's going to 
end.  This movie was a chance to let the audience experience what it 
feels like to be on the brink of annihilation, and the film 
completely fails to do that.

Apart from Costner, the acting isn't bad..  I forget the names of 
most of them, but the men who played John and Robert Kennedy were 
both pretty good.....

Normally, I'd say this film had no chance at any Oscars, but with the 
field so thin this year in a lot of categories, who knows?

Final verdict:  So-so.  This film was able to hold my interest for 
the 2+ hours it runs, but I didn't come away from it feeling enriched 
in any way.  Kinda like eating Chinese food:  you can walk away 
feeling full, but you'll just be hungry again an hour later.  
Hopefully, this film will be what finally gets Congress to act and 
pass a law saying that Kevin Costner is not allowed to make any 
more movies that aren't about baseball.......

-john