In Spy Game, directed by Tony Scott, agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) work at cross purposes to undermine one another and thus the effectiveness of the agency. Retiring Special Agent Nathan Muir (played by Robert Redford) hears that his onetime protégée Tom Bishop (played by Brat Pitt) has been captured by authorities in China […]
NOMINATIONS CLOSE FOR POLITICAL FILM SOCIETY AWARDS During 2000, more than 20 films were nominated for various Political Film Society awards. Rules require only five nominations per category, so members can now narrow the choices. The ballot below has a threefold choice—accept, drop, or undecided. To refresh your memory, consult reviews posted during 2000. OFFICIAL
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O Brother, Where Art Thou? is nearly a camp version of portions of Homer’s The Odyssey, or so we are told at the beginning of the film, directed by Joel Coen. When the film begins, Ulysses Everett McGill (played by George Clooney), Pete (played by John Turturro), and Delmar (played by Tim Black Nelson) are escaping from
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Chessplaying requires extraordinary concentration, so those who excel may think of nothing else until they encounter burnout. The Luzhin Defence, a British film based on the book Zashchita Luzhina (1930) by Vladimir Nabokov (translated into English as The Defence), focuses on Aleksandr Luzhin (played by John Turturro), who is a chess grandmaster about to enter a world
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In 1969, a stage play Boesman & Lena indicting South Africa’s apartheid was performed in South Africa; in 1970, off Broadway. A film followed in 1974. Some twenty-five years later Boesman & Lena has been brought to the screen again by director John Berry, who died late last year. Danny Glover stars as Boesman and Angela Bassett as Lena.
MULTICULTURAL LOS ANGELES FETED AT THANKSGIVING Thanksgiving is an odd American holiday. A nation composed of immigrants from around the world expects to sit down to a dinner table with an extended family to consume a strange combination of relatively bland foods–roast turkey and dressing with sweet and mashed potatoes—made palatable by the addition of
In Men of Honor Carl Brashear is depicted as a quintessential American hero. Although the film is based on a true story, director George Tillman, Jr., has not made a biopic but rather has added dramatic flourishes to make an exciting and heartwarming story. Born into poverty at Sonora, Kentucky, we first see Brashear swimming
When the major networks announced sitcom line-ups for fall 1999, not a single minority person was cast, though minor networks featured “The PJs” and “The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer,” both filled with Black stereotypes. In Bamboozled, Director Spike Lee delivers a riposte to the networks, critiquing even the portrayal of Blacks in “The Jeffersons”
THE “WAR ON POVERTY” WORKS IN ENGLAND In Ratcatcher, Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, Jr., who also plays an acting role in the film, presents a vivid picture of the working class slums in Glasgow with a very different slant from Ken Loach’s My Name Is Joe (1999). Before World War II, sociologists used to think