Edmond

And some people say I’m resistant to change! In “Edmond” (2005), William H. Macy plays a mild-mannered, big-city office worker who finds out his meeting tomorrow has been bumped back. Next thing you know, he’s haggling hookers over sex while becoming a knife-wielding, nonsense-soliloquizing, homicidal maniac. It’s like “Falling Down” fell down. And can’t get up. Because Macy stabbed it. And then talked it to death. The incessantly pretentious chattiness comes courtesy of David Mamet’s play, which he adapted to somehow be even more like a play. Everyone sounds like they’re Capital A Acting, even when they’re committing a felony.

State and Main

You know those movies where people are talking, but they don’t sound like they’re talking, they sound like their reading out loud? “State and Main” (2000) is one of those movies. It’s not a bad movie, per se (Right there. They would say something like “per se” in this movie). When movie people make movies about people making a movie, it’s never quite as funny as the movie people think. The movie promos make a big deal about how it’s “A Film by David Mamet.” He’s made some great movies (“Glengarry Glen Ross”). This is not one of those movies.