Not the solutions they promise to be

In the past ten days I've watched both Evita (1996, dir Alan Parker) and Enigma (2001, dir Michael Apted). One is wildly famous and stars two major celebrities; the other is obscure and has one semi-celebrity who is too normal to rate many column inches. One sucked. The other was awesome.

Go on, guess.

Evita sucked because:

• Alone among Webber musicals, it had only one catchy song
• It lacked historical and political context
• It didn't go into enough detail for the plot to make sense
• It made out that Eva Peron's general popularity was entirely due to her being Peron's wife, which can't be the only truth
• It had a narrator, for crying out loud
• It had an inconclusive ending
• Madonna was in it
• It was too long
• It was boring

Enigma was awesome because:

• The actors were actually playing their characters, not themselves
• It had a really good plot mix between romance, espionage and intellectuality
• It was set in a time and place that intrigues us all
• It had mathematicians
• It had a happy ending
• It was very plausible (more importantly, it made the viewer want to believe)
• Kate Winslet was in it
• It had British accents!

I'm not reading much because I have a SOSC essay to write, but I did open Salient last week, and even read a very good article therein which roundly condemned intellectual property.