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Chronicling the life of a living legend
Whittling a story as complex, compelling, and steeped in history as Mohammed Ali's down to a few cinematic hours can't be an easy task. Besides being an uber-charismatic heavyweight boxing champion, the man was shaped by the Civil Rights movement, was close friends with Malcolm X, and his involvement with the Nation of Islam not only gave him a sense of Black identity--it also stripped him of heard-earned money and showed him the hypocritical mask organized religion can wear. More
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The worst coupling since Michael and Lisa Marie
The tag line for Alien vs. Predator is "whoever wins… we lose." Unfortunately, the trailer fails to explain that the 'we' refers not to the characters in the movie, but to the people who find themselves in the theater while this movie is screening. More
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Moulin Rouge hits mostly low notes
Moulin Rouge has all the ingredients for disappointing fare -- summer-blockbuster hype, MTV videos, and big-budget actors mixed in with bad singing and a melodramatic storyline. Baz Luhrmann, the down under director of Romeo and Juliet and Strictly Ballroom, must have been indulging in some absinthe when he came up with the concept for this movie. Nicole Kidman (who's as cold and icy as ever, despite her efforts at portraying warmth) plays Satine, the Sparkling Diamond, the star of the seedy nightclub Moulin Rouge (an actual historical hot spot) in the oh-so bo-ho Montmarte section of Paris... More
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Movies
A Poor Man’s Political Parable
Franklin D. Roosevelt famously described onetime Louisiana governor Huey Long, an outspoken champion of radical populist politics, as "one of the most dangerous men in America." If Willie Stark, Long’s fictional alter ego, is any indication, FDR might have been right. Stark is an unrepentant bully who doesn’t just muscle his way past the opposition; he blows them out of the water. Whether he is a working-class hero or a power-hungry demagogue is subject to debate. More
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i am sam explores the hardest job in the world
At this point in my life, I think if I had kids I would be a total nutjob. In fact, I believe if the majority of my friends were to breed, they too would be under severe duress and would soon succumb to insanity. The point being that: raising kids is the hardest job in the world, next to teaching and brain surgery. The movie i am sam explores how difficult and also how simple raising a child can be. Sam Dawson (Sean Penn who deserves an Oscar Award for his performance here) is a hardworking Starbucks employee More
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Woody Allen may not come from space or tear through stomachs, but as the protagonist in Deconstructing Harry he may be the most vicious creature at the multiplex this winter.
It's often a mistake to read the lurid events of an artist's personal life into his work, but Deconstructing Harry fairly begs for such an interpretation. Towards the end, Harry, the novelist played by Allen, tells a group of professors that in his next novel, he's going to stop pretending that his protagonist isn't him. It seems to be Allen's way of signaling to the audience that he's aware of how rawly autobiographical much of the film is, even though it’s also fantastical and surreal. After all, Harry is inducted in the world of infidelity by an Asian prostitute tricked out in campy, Chinoserie drag in a scene that can't help but reference More
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Dim-witted Doomsday Tale Can't End Soon Enough
With Alone in the Dark's second-team all-star cast featuring the notoriously hard-partying Christian Slater and Tara Reid matching wits with the quick-witted Stephen Dorff, who wouldn't want to check out an afternoon on that set? Perhaps the better question is -- who would want to check out this tired doomsday fable, which is as bleak as it is nonsensical? More
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At some point, everyone is that guy. That guy who tells a joke so humorless that nobody can even feign laughter; that guy who makes a comment so inappropriate that everyone around sneers as they turn away. Ben Stiller, on the other hand, is that guy all the time. His specialty is portraying a likable guy for whom everything goes painfully wrong, despite his good intentions. More
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Suburban Crime Drama Scores
Written and directed by Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook, John Q), Alpha Dog is loosely based on Jesse James Hollywood, a mid-level Southern California drug dealer who, before he turned twenty, became a fugitive and earned a spot on the FBI’s most wanted list (he was apprehended in South America two years ago and is currently awaiting trial on multiple charges). The film, however, is not a romanticized, sentimentalized exploration of a minor criminal who meets a violent, premature end. Instead, it is a wrenching, if overlong, cultural critique of suburbia and wannabe gangstas. More
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Movies
How Sweet the Sound
In Amazing Grace, director Michael Apted sheds light on antislavery pioneer, William Wilberforce, whose life arguably was the personification of the song. The film opens with a powerful scene in which Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) exits his carriage in a driving rainstorm to stop another driver from beating his weary, rain soaked horse. Right away you are inspired by Wilberforce’s fierce humanitarianism. More
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