300 PORTRAYS SPARTANS HOLDING BACK MIDDLE EASTERN HORDES The film 300, directed by Zack Snyder, is based on a comic book by a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley that seeks to portray life in Sparta and the Battle of Thermopylae from August 11-13, 480 bce, between a coalition of twelve Greek city-states […]
GRBAVICA: THE LAND OF MY DREAMS IS ABOUT A NIGHTMARE EXISTENCE What is life in Bosnia like today? That Bosniaks find difficulties in their daily lives is an understated answer to the question, as portrayed in Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams, directed by Jasmila Žbanić. The focus in the movie is on Esma (played
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G.I. Jesús, directed by Carl Colpaert, is the second anti-war film about Iraq. The movie focuses on Jesús Feliciano (played by Joe Arquette), who returns home to a trailer park outside Los Angeles from a tour of duty in Iraq with one month of leave before redeployment. He suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, as illustrated
Offside, directed by Jafar Panahi, is yet another remarkable film about the unequal treatment of women in Iran. When the film begins, a girl dressed as a boy (played by Sima Mobarak-Shahi) is on a bus that is headed for the soccer stadium where Iran will play Bahrain. The year is 2005. The winner will
Fracture, directed by Gregory Hoblit, is another in the perfect crime genre. At the beginning of the film, aeronautical engineer Theodore Crawford (played by Anthony Hopkins) leaves work, visits the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica to witness his wife Jennifer (played by Embeth Davidtz) swimming in the hotel pool with Robert Nunally (played by Billy
Perfect Stranger, directed by James Foley, begins with journalist Rowena (played by Halle Berry) presenting Senator Sachs (played by Gordon MacDonald) with evidence that she plans to run a story in a New York newspaper of his affair with another man. Married and with gubernatorial ambitions, the Senator offers to do anything in order to
Descent, directed by Talia Lugacy, is a slow-moving story of the date rape of Baltimoran African American Maya (played by Rosario Dawson) and her revenge. Maya is a student at Claremont University (the filming is at Farleigh Dickinson University) who is flattered into bed by fellow student Jared (played by Chad Faust), whereupon he imposes
X-Men 3, directed by Brett Ratner, is premised on the development of an antidote for mutants by a pharmaceutical firm based on Alcatraz Island. The antidote is blood from Jimmy (played by Cameron Bright), a mutant who can reverse mutant conditions. Although some mutants take the antidote, Magneto (played by Ian McKellan) leads the opposition
The story of Queen Esther is found in the book of Esther in the Old Testament, but a recent novel, Hadassah: One Night With the King (2004) by Tommy Tenney with Mark Andrew Olsen, dramatizes her role is saving the Jews from genocide, an event now celebrated as Purim. Based on the novel, the film One Night
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THE VULGARITY OF BORAT INVITES LAWSUITS In 1831, twenty-five year old aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville toured American and wrote up his memorable impressions, thereby ushering in a genre of on-the-road literature about the United States that has often been brought to the screen, most recently in Transamerica (2005). Borat: Cultural Learnings of American for Make