You know it's been a long day at the office when this makes you laugh after 20 repeat viewings.

This movie being 21 years old, I think it's okay for me to write spoilers in this post.

I'm probably about to commit some sort of Woody Allen blasphemy, but here it is: while Hannah and Her Sisters is full of great acting and music, the movie itself didn't do a lot for me.

Starring Allen, Michael Caine, Diane Wiest, Mia Farrow, and Barbara Hershey, the story revolves around the affairs of Hannah's husbands and sisters. While Farrow is a well-grounded and independent woman, the rest of her family isn't so much so. Be it drugs, business ventures, or relationships, they're all struggling to find happiness or a purpose in life. Full of clever dialogue and quirky characters, there are plenty of amusing scenes and interesting people to watch. Michael Caine, in particular, acted his part perfectly. Allen provides a lot of comedy, and provided the one character I could actually feel something for, because even though he was annoying, his situation was at least sympathetic and comical.

Full of great classical selections, the soundtrack was beautiful. I especially liked the montage of architectural highlights and the record Lee listens to and discusses with Elliott.

There are so many great aspects to this movie, but it ultimately left me feeling pretty empty. Am I supposed to root for affairs, or ponder the effects of them? I'm not quite sure, but the behavior of most of the characters didn't exactly make it a rewarding experience for me. Through their confusion and meandering, I felt confused and listless. By the time the movie ended, with Hannah's ex-husband married to her sister, and Hannah still married to her husband who had an affair with her other sister, all I could feel was .. kind of grossed out at the sort of incestuous feeling of it all. I couldn't get myself to laugh at it. How could Hannah be so nonchalant about her sister's marriage to her ex, and why should Elliott get away with his affair? It bothered me and left me unsatisfied, even though the characters all seemed happy at the movie's end.

I guess I just couldn't get myself attached to anything in the movie, despite its great production value. Oh well.

Ok, so this is kind of old. Curse Bush for making it up...in 1992?

Dick Cheney was talking a little bit of sense when he was considering a run for the White House in 1994. Too bad this guy wasn't our Vice President in 2003.

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

This is awesome.

pants always beats no pants