COLUMBINE DELAYS A FILM THAT PERHAPS EXPLAINS THE ATMOSPHERE FOR THE MASSACRE O, based on Shakespeare’s Othello with some passages from the Verdi opera, takes place in Palmetto Grove Academy, a prep school in Charleston, South Carolina. The Othello is African American Odin James (played by Mekhi Phifer), a star basketball player on scholarship who […]
2001 VERSION FAILS TO APE THE SUCCESS OF THE EARLIER PLANET OF THE APES In 1968, Planet of the Apes emerged as one of the most profound films of all times, raising issues about racial discrimination and nuclear war. Now a retake (not a remake) with a roughly similar plot and a unique surprise ending,
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CODDLES PARENTS WHO ABUSE ADOPTED CHILDREN Director Stanley Kubrick wanted filmviewers to leave a cinema with profound questions, not answers. When he started Artificial Intelligence, he again had existential puzzles in mind, but he did not live to finish the project. Steven Spielberg, with whom he communicated about Artificial Intelligence, then took over
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FORMULAIC PEARL HARBOR ADMITS TO RACISM, BOMBS A JAPANESE AMERICAN, AND PERPETUATES A MYTH Pearl Harbor has the distinction of having more advance publicity than any film in recent memory, but of course the $140 million project commemorates events exactly sixty years ago and doubtless will be re-released on December 7. Although the trailer may
BLOW STICKS ITS NOSE INTO THE LIFE OF AN EARLY SUPPLIER FOR THE RECREATIONAL LIBERATION The sexual liberation, which began in California during the 1960s, was accompanied by the recreational liberation. A weed from México brought temporary Nirvana to consumers and vast wealth to kingpins. In the 1970s, however, a powder from Colombia gradually replaced
JOHN BOORMAN ISSUES A WARNING ABOUT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION On December 31, 1999, the government of Panamá took control of the Panamá Canal after eight-five years of American sovereignty over the Canal Zone. A clause in the reversion agreement, negotiated to appease conservative Senators who were otherwise reluctant to ratify the treaty, provides that the
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JEAN-JACQUES ANNAUD HONORS THE MEMORY OF THE SNIPER OF STALINGRAD When Nazi Germany was at the pinnacle of its power in 1942, the only adversary left on the European continent was the Soviet Union, and the path to German control of the oil-rich Caucasus lay through the city of Stalingrad. Now Jean-Jacques Annaud, whose Seven
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DOWN TO EARTH PATRONIZES AFRICAN AMERICANS In Down to Earth, Lance Barton (played by Chris Rock) is trying to make it as a comedian at the Apollo Club in Harlem, but he just has not developed the knack. All of a sudden, while distracted by a pretty woman, he is killed by a passing truck,
In Training Day, Jake Hoyt (played by Ethan Hawke) is a rookie cop assigned to an experienced undercover narcotics detective, Alonzo Harris (played by Denzil Washington), whose efforts account for 15,000 man-years in sentences over a thirteen-year career. At 5 A.M., Hoyt is awakened by an alarm, and his wife Lisa (played by Charlotte Ayanna) prepares
What would you do if you had only twelve hours to live? That question is posed by titles at the beginning of Too Tired to Die, directed by Wonsuk Chin. When the movie starts, twentysomething Kenji (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) has a dream that an Arab boy is being chased through Baghdad by two soldiers under