Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 08/09/24

The Dog Days of Summer edition

I’d like to thank everyone who sent well-wishes to me last week after reading about my harrowing ordeal at the dentist. I’d also like to express my abject disbelief that no one mentioned my tooth-as-giant-squid pun, which was frankly a masterpiece, and how dare you.

The side of the face in question. Swelling gone, but not the pain.

From the Agency of Health and Wellness: Dentistry Update

My recovery was relatively uneventful—just painful. I’m still in pain, in fact, and taking antibiotics, and will be doing so for another week. To quote the nurse who called to check up on me, my extraction was “...extensive.” That’s what she kept saying to me: “You’re going to be sore for a while, because your extraction was so...extensive.” She kept saying that word, and I do not think it means what she thinks it does. Maybe it’s a euphemism. It does sound more professional than “fucked up,” which was how she used it in the sentence.

My follow-up visit was telling. I walked in ten minutes early and the building was empty except for the nurse, in a mask, and the receptionist, who looked at Janice and said, deadpan, “Oh good, you brought him back.”

The nurse guided me through the empty halls to an empty exam room, where she looked in my mouth, irrigated the wound site, and sent me on my way with one of her little water guns. It was pretty routine, except that they cleared the building, lest I hulk out again.

My jaw and temple still hurt, but the pain diminishes every day. More than anything, I’m incredibly sensitive to cold. And I’m another week away from being able to each anything crunchy and really chew. I’m still popping Advil like they’re Skittles. I’ve never taken this long to bounce back from oral surgery before, but then again, it was...extensive.

Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review

The Instigators (Apple)

Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are two hapless criminals who agree to a heist that quickly goes wrong, forcing them to flee to avoid capture and try to recoup their losses.

Okay, this is a caper flick, first and foremost, but it takes some liberties with the formula. That’s a good thing. The heist (excuse me, the caper) takes place in the first 30 minutes of the movie, leaving the rest of the run time filled with one chase after another, with comedic situations piling up, all with a running commentary provided by Casey Affleck’s character, who is physically incapable of shutting the hell up for even a minute.

As a comedic crime movie goes, it’s very middle-of-the-road. The problem lies mainly in the main characters, who we are supposed to care about, or at least sympathize with, but that never happens. They are both hapless, one through no fault of his own (presumably) as a veteran with (presumably) PTSD, and one who is an alcoholic. Funny! I think the only thing that saves the movie is sheer force of will from Damon and Affleck, who have chemistry and are trying desperately to play two people from Boston who aren’t just a bag of clichés. There’s just not enough stakes at hand from the pair—everyone else’s problems are much bigger.

Actually, the best character in the movie is the city of Boston, who apparently likes classic rock and House of Pain. Boston in the 21st century is, on film, like New York City was in the 1970s—full of sociopaths who would just as soon kill you as look at you. Also, lots of criminals. I’d ask someone from Boston what’s up with that, but I suspect they all like it that way.

The Instigators one saving grace is that I was able to watch it at my house. Had this been a theatrical release, it would likely have been savaged. But at home, high on pain meds, it’s a breezy caper flick that doesn’t conclude so much as it peters out. Everything you think is going to happen, happens. It’s a comforting casserole, with Rice-a-Roni on the side. This movie would make a good warm-up to Soderberg’s Logan Lucky, which does a lot of the same things, only better.

Mark Finn is one of the most opinionated and influential experts on Robert E. Howard in the state of Texas. He’s an author out of largesse rather than as a vocation and writes stories because he can’t play the guitar. He loves gorillas, values a well-placed conversational movie quote, and treasures the picaresque in literature. Annoyed with people’s misunderstanding of popular culture, he took it upon himself to buy a movie theater so he could lord it over every film student on the Internet. He likes to say, “If three people tell you you’re drunk, go lie down.”