Last week we watched Taken. Co-written and produced by French (but I think he wishes he was American) auteur Luc Besson, starring Liam Neeson, this film was number one at the US box office earlier this year, thanks to an effective trailer and lack of competition when it was released. Neeson is ex-CIA. His daughter travels to Paris and within hours of arrival is kidnapped to be sold into the white sex slave trade. Neeson, once an actual actor, becomes a one man demolition squad, taking apart all of Paris in his quest to get his daughter back. It’s the kind of fantasy in which one man with a gun goes up against 10 men and kills them all without receiving so much as a scratch in return. But as grade B action films go, it’s effective and entertaining and at 91 minutes, it gets where it’s going quickly enough. Taken scored all of 40% with “top critics” at Rotten Tomatoes.

Tonight, without thinking about the connection, we watched Spartan. (Actually it was because earlier today we watched Untouchables and I was still in a Mamet mood.) This 2004 film starring Val Kilmer, William H. Macy and Ed O’Neill was written and directed by David Mamet. With a production budget of $20 million, it grossed all of $2 million in the US. It’s difficult to talk about the plot without giving away the myriad twists and turns and surprises, but it’s probably safe to tell you that the President’s daughter is kidnapped and sold into the sex trade. Or did she die in a boating accident off Martha’s Vineyard? The film is brutal, cynical, blunt. It’s very much of a piece with Mamet’s other “con” films including House of Games, Spanish Prisoner, Heist and Redbelt.

As a writer, Mamet has given us Glengarry Glen Ross, Postman Always Rings Twice, Wag the Dog, Ronin, Untouchables (among others).

Spartan scored just 53% with top critics at Rotten Tomatoes, though the NY Times said that it “is a vigorous and engrossing genre exercise that manages the difficult trick of being both logically meticulous and genuinely surprising.”

And it holds up to repeated viewings, too. You might consider renting it one day if you’re in the mood for something different.

Untouchables – Brian De Palma directing. Mamet screenplay. Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro starring. Ennio Morricone score. Costumes by Giorgio Armani! And who else but De Palma would have the balls to steal the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin? I love Vincent Canby’s review in the NY Times when it first opened – “of such entertaining order that it almost redeems Hollywood’s current reputation for idiotic profligacy and total irrelevance.” What would Canby have thought of Taken? Easy enough to guess.

Here’s my current situation …. as most of you know, I’m living in a village house in a small mountain town just outside of Sai Kung town. 2100 square feet plus a patio, two balconies, rooftop and a 700 square foot garden. The village is peaceful and quiet. I have a million dollar view. And plenty of room for my girlfriend, my helper, my two large-ish dogs and all my stuff. I love this house. My lease runs until March of next year and at the landlord’s request does NOT contain the standard two month break-lease clause, though of course there are probably ways around that.

My future …. as of November 1, I will be out of work. I will be getting approximately 1 year’s salary as severance pay. I do not collect the package if I leave before November 1st. I don’t know yet if at that point I will look to get another job along the same lines as what I’ve been doing for the past 23 years and, if I do, will I find something within two months, six months, never. Or, I could up the level of risk by attempting to start my own business.

Of course, one of the things I’m thinking about is economizing. What I can cut out of my life and reduce my monthly overhead. One thing of course is rent.

I’ve been looking at ads and seeing that, thanks to a down economy, I could get 2 floors (1400 square feet) in a village house for approximately half the rent I’m paying now. Going that route, I’d need to come up with two months’ rent for security deposit, 1/2 months’ rent for the realtor, and probably spend somewhere around $10k on the move. All my stuff won’t fit into 1400 square feet – I’d have to consider a combination of selling, donating and storing a large part of it. And that’s optimistically hoping that my landlord would go along with letting me out of the lease early – calling her “kookie” would be putting it mildly, calling her unbalanced might not be an overstatement, and I’ve got no idea how she’d react to this.

So on the one hand, it would kill me to get rid of stuff and move out of a house I love and then get lucky and find another job at the same income level within a matter of months. On the other hand, it would kill me to be paying out the rent in this house month after month and watch my savings dwindle as a fruitless job search continues.

So, hope for the best or expect the worst? Should I stay or should I go?

OR …. wait till November gets closer so I can judge the state of the economy and make a more informed decision?