Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?

We went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty this afternoon, which was only loosely based on the title written by James Thurber.  (When I saw the trailer for the movie I wondered how the tiny story could become a feature length movie; the movie had almost nothing in common with the story at all.)

Still, it was a rather sweet movie, one I could have liked better with any other title.  Sean Penn was in the movie (not nearly enough).  I have wanted to marry Sean Penn since the mid-eighties when he married Madonna instead.  Of course, I was only ten then, but I think I saw something special in a man who would brandish a rifle at his wedding to protect his privacy.

It was not a brilliant movie, not brilliant like Thurber's short story.  But when I stopped counting inconsistencies and accepted it, it became sort of cute.  But I really, really wanted Ben Stiller to say, at some point, Walter Mitty's signature line, Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?  He didn't, of course, because there was no need.  I said it to J and Shawn in the car on the way home to compensate.


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