"I never lend books to coal miners"

Last month, I wrote here about one of my favorite movies, Office Space. It's a great movie, but it's still not my favorite movie of all time.

Oh, and despite what you think of me, it's not "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" or even "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" ;).

In fact, the movie is not even a comedy. It did poorly in the box office in 1984, and is the infamous movie that was made in a trade for Bill Murray to make "Ghostbusters".

This fantastic movie is called The Razor's Edge. Based on the Somerset Maugham novel of the same name, the story follows Larry Darrell (Bill Murray), a rich kid from Lake Forest Illinois, who wants more than a stockbroker's life after coming back from WWI. To tell you more, as much as I'd like to, about the movie really gives too much away.

The first time I watched the movie, I was in Asian Philosophy, one of these "silly general ed" classes that University of Kentucky forced science majors to take. I think that class, including this movie, had as much to do with who I am today than probably all the physics classes I took put together (sorry Mom and Dad!). For example, it's easy to sit in a classroom and feel good about what happens in a perfect world to inanimate objects skidding down inclines, but that class forced me to really think about why us humans find ourselves stumbling through life like we do. That's the type of thing that you don't really get to ponder in optics.

One of the interesting things about getting -- let's just say, wiser -- is that you can review a great movie while remembering your first reactions years ago. The gap between those two moviegoers can be as fantastically small as it is broad.

Anyways, if you have a chance, please go ahead and watch it -- I promise it will be worth the two hours of your time.