At the movies, February 2005

Tonight, my wife and I saw yet another Scarlett Johansson movie about globalization. As reported here some time ago, "Lost in Translation" was a pretty good flick about a couple of Americans who feel isolated in Tokyo. This evening, we caught "In Good Company," which isn't nearly as violent as last week's movie, but is much more entertaining.

The Dennis Quaid character, who lives a stressful time in this movie, has a nice scene near the film's end when he directly questions the stream of mindless globalization clap-trap coming from the mouth of "Teddy K" (played by Malcolm McDowell), CEO of Globecom. Quaid's division of his firm has been devastated by a corporate takeover and he wants to know how the CEO can, in the face of the facts, talk about new forms of democracy, alternative to the nation-state?

Good question. Where can he go for answers? Teddy K makes his recommendation, but I offer mine: Look for Johansson in the film edition of Democratizing Global Politics around June 2006.

I should note that the movie deal hasn't yet been pitched, which means we might not be able to sign Johansson. Meanwhile, she'll probably find other work.