I will grant you that comparing the choreographed action sequences with a Fred Astaire dance sequence is an interesting one. However, where Fred Astaire's dance is graceful, smooth and obviously choreopraphed, the Bourne fights are disjointed and rough in their nature. Thus Greengrass decides to film them as such.

I wonder if a comparison with Jerome Robbins's choreography would have been more apt.

I guess to me it's simply a matter of what the technique brings to the film. Brian's Song using slow motion is arguably the same issue as Greengrass using fast cuts. They both are used to heighten the intended effect on the audience. One to make the audience cry, the other to make the audience feel the immediacy and speed of the situation. Also I agree that had Hitchcock used hyperfast cutting in Psycho it would be rediculous, but then, he wasn't making a film about a CIA-trained killing machine fighting for his life.

I guess the best defense I can muster is the three Bourne films. I believe the second and third ones to be far better than the first. Damon's acting improved, but I give the credit mostly to Greengrass (and Doug Liman who, as producer of these films, seems to agree, as he hired and retained Greengrass). Bourne (the character) is fast, kinetic, he's never quite aware of exactly what his purpose is or what he is doing. He is at once in the middle of the action/fighting and mentally removed from it. The same can be said about the films (TBS & TBU) themselves. When the manner of presentation can become the material its presenting, that reinforces said material. Identity did not do this as explicitly (or at all) and therefore is inferior in my eyes.

I too can barely tolerate the new, for want of a better phrase, MTV-style of filmmaking. It's akin to someone who talks to fast, like those disclaimers at the end of pharmaceutical ads ("May cause blindness, diarrhea, gout, demonic possession..."). Tell, or in films' case, show me something in a human scale of understanding.

You wrote, "I love the constant whining against this so-called "MTV school of filmmaking." It seems its detractors are offended by a style, not by the many incompetent directors practicing the style. Let's remember the shower scene in Psycho. The shots are extremely short and the cuts are numerous yet it is still hailed as a masterpiece of film."

Well yes, but the famous shower scene was one scene, not an entire movie. It was shockingly effective, and then the movie reverted to a less frenzied pace.

Remember the end of Brian's Song, when the two football players run in slow motion towards the camera? That scene could make even a stone cry, but imagine if the entire movie had been filmed in slow motion. It's the same thing, IMHO, with all those quick cuts.

That first sentence isn't about hating Republicans, it's about hating George W. Bush. There are many Republicans who accept that Bush is a fraud and an intellectual child, just as there are (a few) Democrats who know that the Clintons are pandering whores.

Knowing how unqualified and dishonest the Bush administration is has nothing to do with being a Democrat or a Republican. It's an objective observation which transcends political parties.

I love the Bourne movies, have them on DVD and will be seeing the ultimatum tomorrow. I can't wait.

http://OsiSpeaks.com or http://OsiSpeaks.org

If you see Ultimatum, much of his struggle to deal with who he was, who he was turned into, and why, and who he is now, is what the movie is about.

The first two Bourne's have for me quietly slipped into the category of "movies I can not help but watch over and over every time they are on, even when they are on USA or TNT, commercials and all". In the first installment of Bourne, there is a moment where our hero, having just disposed of the Paris-based Treadstone operative, offers the (in way over her head) Marie a "get out now while you still can" offer - immediatley informing us that at least one of the things he has retained in his unfortunate amnesiatic state is a true good guy sense for the well being of others who aren't trying to kill him (Marie responds to his offer by strapping on her seatbelt for an ensuing Ronin-like Paris car chase, in a sense boldly proclaiming, "I'm with you Jason!" ME TOO!!). This quality, which Damon effortlessly convinces us is a genuine Bourne characteristic leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy all over and makes the brutal ass kicking that ensues in Identity and Supremacy completely satisfying (read: everyone this guy lays the smack down on totally deserves it). This character element, coupled with the gritty directing of Limon and the Bloody Sunday guy makes me want to curl up and watch our boy outsmart the dipshit bad guys over and over (and over)... something I just can't say for so many silly and cartoonish Bond flicks and other failed attempts at this genre I won't bother mentioning.

Anyway, I totally love the Bourne movies, and can't wait to watch this latest installment. A good review from Salon is just icing on the cake. Full disclosure: I also can't turn off "The Devil Wears Prada" and the Lindsay Lohan update of "The Parent Trap" when they come on, so while I am tempted to explain why that is, I won't, and feel free to ignore this completely.

Matt Damon is a master of blankness -- his best performances all revolve around that, whether in "Good Will Hunting," "The Bourne Identity," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," or "The Departed" -- that bland virtuosity that is Damon's stock in trade, where even when he's excellent at something, his cipherlike quality mutes it, diminishes it, like a lightly-applied eraser to a penciled line, blurring the details.

Nobody does affable blankness (for good, for evil, or for good and/or evil, as in Bourne) quite the way Damon does. In that blankness, a uniquely American hero resides, and, I think, is a big part of Damon's success as an actor -- maybe Americans find they can project themselves onto Damon's characters, and onto Bourne, a kind of superhero assassin -- but we're supposed to like him, to forgive him, for he knows not what he does. That is so utterly American, it bleeds red, white, and blue.

I loved the first Bourne movie, and wished the franchise would've stopped there, because there's something unsettling about the extension of that blankness over three movies; it makes American audiences complicit in it. The Bourne movies would've probably been impossible without Damon to carry them, but they'd have been revolutionary in the 70s or even 80s, when Americans could conceivably not know what we do as a nation, or what we're capable of being. In our imperial era, however, such blankness isn't even a luxury; it's a delusion.

Today, there's less of an excuse to have that kind of blankness, with the abrogation of responsibility and accountability that comes with it, and to see it trotted out again in "The Bourne Ultimatum" -- I don't know; it kind of creeps me out.

Bourne's both a victim and a perpetrator of violence (physical and psychological) -- gifted with superhuman talents that were intended for subhuman purposes, able to do amazing things, but unable to really understand why -- he's the enfant terrible of espionage.

People talk about Bourne's isolation -- and Damon's bland affability sells it, and that's true, but Bourne's truly a monster more than a superhero, with no real place in civil society. Or, if he has a place, then our society is no longer a civil one. That's Bourne's ultimatum to the rest of us.