NUTSHELLED: "THE INFORMANT!"

"Is this another one of your movies about nothing?" That's what Alecia used to ask me, at the beginning of our relationship, whenever I wanted to see or rent a film, because there was a good stretch there where I craved oddness or misathropy in cinema to exclusion of all things conventional. Todd Solondz, One-Hour Photo, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich - you get the idea. Don't get me wrong: I'm as stoked as any trash fiend for Machete and salivate over Frat Pack fare, but I'll still be lobbying for the Exit Through The Gift Shop DVD as a Christmas present this year. I guess the point is that 10 years ago, I'd have forced myself to finish watching The Informant! even though it's basically unwatchable; I'd have somehow convinced myself that there was something funny and worthwhile about an unlikeable Matt Damon in 1992 upper-management scum drag smirking through a plot that isn't a plot. I don't know if we made it halfway through, and I can't remember what was or wasn't happening at whatever point we checked out. Like a bargain-basement Fargo. And I liked Fargo! So resoundingly terrible - the book it's based on must be a suicide aid - that I'm not even gonna conclude this capsule review with a rhetorical question. You don't mind, do you? F