246 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(03/04/04 3:38am)
The old story goes that when Robert S. McNamara, then the president of Ford Motor Company, was asked by newly elected President John F. Kennedy to join the Cabinet, McNamara was hesitant because he was unsure he had the credentials.\nKennedy responded, with typically dry Kennedy humor, he didn't think there was a school for presidents either.\nBut McNamara stood up, when asked by his government to serve, and became the Secretary of Defense for Kennedy and later Lyndon Johnson. He served during perhaps one of the most tumultuous times in the Defense Department's history. McNamara's own version of the seven years he served is captured by Errol Morris in an award-winning documentary called "The Fog of War."\nThe concept may seem boring and the film seems to run a little long, but McNamara's story is full of conflict and struggle. History has been mostly harsh to him, praising him as the "Wiz Kid" sent to save Ford then slamming him as the "architect" of the Vietnam War.\n"The Fog of War" is a combination of archival clips, showing a young McNamara at press conferences or touring Vietnam, and a current conversation with McNamara who was 85-years-old when interviewed, but still has the same or more youthful energy than he did in the old footage. When talking to McNamara, Morris used a device called the "Interrotron," which allows him and his subject to look into each other's eyes while also looking directly into the camera lens. \nIt's that one-on-one feeling which gives the film its real force and impact. Some critics have suggested the current administration would benefit from watching a film like this, and I would agree. Anyone can benefit from watching this film and learning from a wise man. (Morris has subtitled this film "Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert McNamara," and loosely breaks up the movie into 11 segments, each one beginning with a simple truism.)\nThe film isn't trying to resolve the issues around McNamara's tenure. It's trying to understand how a person can work under such pressure with the threat of failure so imminent and still perform well. If there's one overlapping theme here, it's humans are fallible and make mistakes, and regular people need to be reminded of that just as much as someone high in the government. \nMcNamara looks back and regrets things during his stint as defense secretary; but he doesn't write them off and he doesn't dwell on them. He's very human, and this alone makes "The Fog of War" very engaging.
(03/01/04 4:11am)
Well, I saw it. For months leading up to the release of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," the media coverage was deafening. There were interviews, debates and opinions written from people who were given advanced screenings of the film (and even opinions from people who hadn't seen the movie but still shouted loudly enough). \nThis has been the slickest marketed movie ever. \nForget paid ads. The media is taking care of it, free of charge.\nOf course, few films are blessed with the ability to leap from the arts section to the op-ed and front page of the newspaper. But Gibson's film polarized the extremes so well that it left millions of people stuck in the middle who will see the movie just to understand what all the fuss is about.\nThe controversy has been largely the result of an "us versus them" mentality. The rift between Judaism and Christianity has been mentioned, but that's not what this is really about. It's about a film that arrived at the perfect time for the ongoing culture war between secularism and religion. \nI've heard some commentators say the "liberal elite" doesn't understand the film. Gibson has made no qualms of saying his "detractors" don't have a problem with him, or the film, but with the Gospels. It's "us versus them," and they want to know which side you're on.\nCritics who did not like the film have been accused of pandering to their editors. Sure, it would be equally unfair to accuse critics who reviewed the film favorably to be panderers to religious crowds, but never mind that. Overall, the message being sent is: in order to be considered an independent-minded critic, you must like this movie. \nI have no doubt some critics will have personal beliefs they cannot overcome when watching this film, but so what? People aren't flocking to this movie based on reviews. Controversy and religiosity are fueling ticket sales and putting people in theater seats. Besides, if you liked the film, why do you need a critic to justify your admiration?\nPersonally, I thought the film was too violent. It's sadistic -- and I don't use that word lightly. People will argue that's the whole point, but then that makes this a pretty shallow movie lacking any spiritual depth. If there is "faith, hope, love and forgiveness," as Gibson says there is, where is it? Eclipsed in the shadow of the gore?\nIt's not any more anti-Semitic than I thought it'd be. I can easily see why Jewish people are justifiably worried about played-up stereotypes and certain liberties taken with interpretations, but the movie's not going to rile hatred that hasn't already manifested itself in the black heart of a bigot.\nEven if "The Passion" is center stage right now, it's still just a movie. You may cringe or cry, but it won't change your life, and it shouldn't shake your beliefs. You still pay admission, you can still buy overpriced refreshments and popcorn to munch on and, afterward, you can buy a number of tasteless promotional tie-ins, including 2-inch crucifixion nail replicas you can wear around your neck on a leather rope. \nRemember, no matter the subject, somebody somewhere wants your money.\nYou'll either see the movie because your faith draws you to it or because everyone else is seeing it. Or you just won't see it at all. Whichever of those you choose is fine with me, as long as you take a deep breath and repeat the following: it's just a movie.
(02/26/04 5:00am)
"Welcome to Mooseport" can't make up its mind. It wants to be a political satire and a romantic comedy simultaneously, but each genre detracts from the other so much that everything bottoms out. This would be a good movie if it had simply chosen one way or the other.\nThe always-entertaining Gene Hackman is Monroe "The Eagle" Cole, a fresh-out-of-office president who is always reminding people he left the White House with the highest favorability ratings in history. Cole was also divorced while in office, and his ex-wife has seized their home, leaving him with the summer home in the hamlet of Mooseport, Maine.\nThe city council beseeches him to run for mayor once he arrives, and he accepts when he sees the unopposed election as a chance for fantastic public relations. Unfortunately for Cole, the local town plumber Handy Harrison (Ray Romano) also declared his candidacy.\nCole inadvertently asks Handy's long-time girlfriend Sally (Maura Tierney) out on a date. She's waiting on Handy to ask her to marry him, but accepts Cole's offer to invoke jealousy and prod Handy along. The race for the mayoral, and Sally's affection, is on then.\nRomano plays Handy with the same aw-shucks, hapless heroics with which he plays the lead character on his television show "Everybody Loves Raymond." This is his film acting debut (unless you count his voice-work in the animated "Ice Age"), and it's the kind of role which fits his dry humor well.\nThe entire cast is very likable. Many of the smaller, side characters are almost more engaging than the leads, such as Rip Torn as Cole's Machiavellian campaign manager and Marcia Gay Harden in an unusual comedic turn as Cole's personal assistant. Christine Baranski in a cameo as Cole's icy, conniving ex-wife steals most laughs.\nBut the likeability of its actors is all this movie has going for it. Why didn't screenwriter Tom Schulman, who wrote the brilliant "What About Bob?" and won an Oscar for writing "Dead Poet's Society," do more with these interesting characters? I also don't understand why he and director Donald Petrie took so long setting the story up. At times it's so slow it's infuriating; the real laughs only start coming in the last half hour of the movie.\nThe ignored potential of a movie like this really bothered me. I'm sure if "Mooseport" had a clearer objective and incorporated its thankless performances, it would have been a funnier, sharper and all-around better movie.
(02/26/04 2:52am)
"Welcome to Mooseport" can't make up its mind. It wants to be a political satire and a romantic comedy simultaneously, but each genre detracts from the other so much that everything bottoms out. This would be a good movie if it had simply chosen one way or the other.\nThe always-entertaining Gene Hackman is Monroe "The Eagle" Cole, a fresh-out-of-office president who is always reminding people he left the White House with the highest favorability ratings in history. Cole was also divorced while in office, and his ex-wife has seized their home, leaving him with the summer home in the hamlet of Mooseport, Maine.\nThe city council beseeches him to run for mayor once he arrives, and he accepts when he sees the unopposed election as a chance for fantastic public relations. Unfortunately for Cole, the local town plumber Handy Harrison (Ray Romano) also declared his candidacy.\nCole inadvertently asks Handy's long-time girlfriend Sally (Maura Tierney) out on a date. She's waiting on Handy to ask her to marry him, but accepts Cole's offer to invoke jealousy and prod Handy along. The race for the mayoral, and Sally's affection, is on then.\nRomano plays Handy with the same aw-shucks, hapless heroics with which he plays the lead character on his television show "Everybody Loves Raymond." This is his film acting debut (unless you count his voice-work in the animated "Ice Age"), and it's the kind of role which fits his dry humor well.\nThe entire cast is very likable. Many of the smaller, side characters are almost more engaging than the leads, such as Rip Torn as Cole's Machiavellian campaign manager and Marcia Gay Harden in an unusual comedic turn as Cole's personal assistant. Christine Baranski in a cameo as Cole's icy, conniving ex-wife steals most laughs.\nBut the likeability of its actors is all this movie has going for it. Why didn't screenwriter Tom Schulman, who wrote the brilliant "What About Bob?" and won an Oscar for writing "Dead Poet's Society," do more with these interesting characters? I also don't understand why he and director Donald Petrie took so long setting the story up. At times it's so slow it's infuriating; the real laughs only start coming in the last half hour of the movie.\nThe ignored potential of a movie like this really bothered me. I'm sure if "Mooseport" had a clearer objective and incorporated its thankless performances, it would have been a funnier, sharper and all-around better movie.
(02/23/04 4:40am)
When I asked IU Student Association Election Coordinator Derek Molter if there would be a "none of the above" option in tomorrow's IUSA election, he told me there wouldn't be.\n"I have never heard of a ballot that had such an option. I am not sure what the point would be of an option to cast a vote that is not casting a vote," he said.\nLast week, I attended the IUSA executive candidates' debate to decide whom I would vote for. After what I considered one excruciating hour, I reached the decision neither Big Red nor Crimson nor Fusion nor The Hoosier Party would receive my vote. \nI know a few congressional candidates personally and would vote for them if they were in my school or housing area, but the execs everyone can vote for didn't sway me. I wanted to know if I could cast my disappointment as "None of the above."\nAnd why shouldn't I, or IU, or even America as a whole, have that option? We can vote yes or hold our nose and vote for the lesser evil or not vote at all -- what ever happened to telling people no?\nNevada knows. Since 1976, it's had the only non-binding "None of the above" (NOTA) ballot option in the nation. It's drawn large percentages and has won the plurality four times. It's been endorsed by strange bedfellows The Wall Street Journal and Ralph Nader. If NOTA wins, a special election is held with new candidates. Naturally, the rejected candidates can't return for the special election.\nThe common suggestion would be don't vote if you're unsatisfied with the candidates. Molter even suggested to me I could skip whatever position I didn't want to vote for and vote for the other positions. That is, if I even wanted to vote for the other positions.\nBut I've always been an advocate of increasing voter turnout and the number of cast ballots. I wrote a column months ago facetiously advocating we merge Election Day with Halloween, since more young people dress up for parties than vote. For me, not voting simply isn't a choice. \nYet with NOTA, there is a choice. Citizens -- especially students -- continually complain about politics. Contrary to Molter's assessment, a vote for NOTA is indeed a vote, and it's a much more effective protest vote than no vote at all. \nImagine if voters had a NOTA choice for Rep. Mel Reynolds of Illinois, who in mid-1994 was indicted on sex charges but without an opponent, sailed to reelection with 98 percent of the vote. Or imagine if they had NOTA in 1991, when the options for governor of Louisiana were Edwin Edwards, indicted for mail fraud, obstruction of justice and public bribery regarding the sale of hospital certificates, or former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.\n NOTA would hardly cure all of democracy's problems, but it's a good start. Politicians hate the idea of it, so that must give some credit to it. After all, they'd have to give reasons to vote FOR them, not just against the other side.\n Molter did say there will be a "write-in" option for each position. He told me it should allow students to cast a vote if they don't like or don't know the candidates on the ballot. But cast a vote for whom?\n Here's my suggestion: if you know for whom you want to vote, vote for him or her. But if you're like me and you don't like your given options, go ahead and write in yourself, or your boyfriend, or your girlfriend, or your roommate or whoever. It's not exactly "none of the above," but until IUSA gives us that option, it'll have to do.
(02/19/04 5:00am)
The problem with "Sylvia," a biopic starring Gwyneth Paltrow as the unstable poet Sylvia Plath, is the same problem many films about artists encounter: you'll learn more about them by experiencing their art than you will from a scenes-in-the-life-of cinematic depiction of them.\nConsidering that, "Sylvia" comes off as just too ordinary. Plath's 1963 suicide frames the way many people view her work. Director Christine Jeffs pays considerable attention to Plath's troubled marriage to British poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig) and on her neurotic (and correct) suspicions of his infidelities. But for Jeffs, it's all too casually tragic, as if every shot had Plath's suicide in mind rather than seizing the many opportunities to expose the poet suffocating under the shadow of her own death.\nThis isn't a bad film; it's just not a particularly good one. There's nothing on the DVD except the film. It might have been beneficial if there were something else, perhaps a special feature showcasing some of the poems mentioned in the film. \nSince there's not, if you're interested in Plath, I suggest you head to the library for a collection of her poems rather than to the video store for this film.
(02/19/04 12:52am)
The problem with "Sylvia," a biopic starring Gwyneth Paltrow as the unstable poet Sylvia Plath, is the same problem many films about artists encounter: you'll learn more about them by experiencing their art than you will from a scenes-in-the-life-of cinematic depiction of them.\nConsidering that, "Sylvia" comes off as just too ordinary. Plath's 1963 suicide frames the way many people view her work. Director Christine Jeffs pays considerable attention to Plath's troubled marriage to British poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig) and on her neurotic (and correct) suspicions of his infidelities. But for Jeffs, it's all too casually tragic, as if every shot had Plath's suicide in mind rather than seizing the many opportunities to expose the poet suffocating under the shadow of her own death.\nThis isn't a bad film; it's just not a particularly good one. There's nothing on the DVD except the film. It might have been beneficial if there were something else, perhaps a special feature showcasing some of the poems mentioned in the film. \nSince there's not, if you're interested in Plath, I suggest you head to the library for a collection of her poems rather than to the video store for this film.
(02/16/04 4:08am)
I'm not a military person. It's one of those jobs, like a physicist or a ventriloquist, that I could never perform well, no matter how much time I devoted to it. But I do have immense respect for the military -- for its service to our country.\nI mention this because last week's big story concerned President Bush's military service. The political pressure cooker has been revved up on high: "How did he get there, where did he serve, how often did he report, did he fill obligations?" What everyone is looking for is something, anything, that will account for the many gaps in the President's service in the National Guard. \nOne could successfully argue (and I would agree) that this story emerged as a matter of convenience. This story has dogged Bush during all of his runs for elected office but only now has it caught traction.\nWhy? Because as the first presidential election since 9/11 approaches, we're heading back to the days of president-as-warrior. When he ran against Al Gore in 2000, military service didn't factor in because the nation wasn't at war. Now we are.\nAnd it's gaining traction now also because it looks as if the President's November challenger will be Sen. John Kerry, who volunteered for Vietnam and returned home with a chestful of medals after his tours of duty.\nBush entered into the Texas Air National Guard in May 1968, with 12 days left on his student deferment. I don't begrudge the president for his choice. I also don't blame Bush if he used personal connections to avoid going to war (the record clearly shows signs of favoritism, make of that what you will). I can hardly imagine myself doing anything different if my circumstances were the same. I like not being shot at.\nThe media, though, is looking for definitive documentation in any Guard activities from May 1972 through the end of October 1972. And there isn't any. The few witness accounts placing Bush there are inconsistent. Upon his return to Texas until his October 1973 honorable discharge, attendance was sporadic.\nOn Friday, the White House went on the defensive, reversing previous positions and releasing hundreds of pages of documents, with everything from paystubs to medical records, that are said to comprise Bush's entire military record.\nDoes any of this matter? Well, yes and no. A military record isn't the full measure of a candidate. The media likes to go on feeding-frenzies and stick their noses into what candidates did thirty years ago. Just as they want to know every detail about the gaps in Bush's military service, they will go for the jugular on the anti-war activities that Kerry helped organize and participate in after he returned home.\nBut the quality of the individual, his character, how he will face challenges and his values that will determine whether he's qualified to be the president have to come from somewhere. For many people, it's politically viable to point to military service as an asset. But they can't rely on it alone to deliver them. Just ask President John McCain.\nWhat Kerry did after the war and what Bush did during the war doesn't particularly interest me and shouldn't interest you as much as the media wants you to believe. The important issue is what they're going to do from Inaugural Day 2005 forward. Here's hoping military service will be a line on a resume, not the basis of a campaign, because there should be more of a concern about the current issues we face than the thirty-year-old war in Vietnam.
(02/09/04 4:21am)
A modest summary of 2004 primary coverage.\nWolf Blitzer: And welcome back to CNN for our very special America Votes 2004 primary election night. Stay tuned all night -- literally, all night -- for CNN's election coverage. We'll have rambling commentaries, outlandish suggestions and interviews with candidates who think fourth place is a "strong comeback." Plus, we'll use harsh electric currents to keep Larry King awake. But now, I am joined by senior political analysts Judy Woodruff and Jeff Greenfield -- actual warm bodies I can talk to, instead of a cold camera lens ... No offense to my camera operator.\nJudy and Jeff: Thanks, Wolf.\nWolf: Let's begin with you, Judy. What's at stake tonight?\nJudy: Well Wolf, there are primaries and caucuses in seven states at stake. And, as all of our viewers know, seven equals one less than eight, but is still one more than six.\nJeff: But it's more than just states at stake here. It's the delegates. It's all about the delegates in this delegate game. So to win, candidates need delegates. We would be remiss if we didn't remind our viewers the delegates are, after all, the delegates.\nWolf: Jeff, I hate to cut you off, but we have late breaking news -- actual votes coming in. With nearly 1 percent of precincts reporting, CNN is prepared to call Sen. John Edwards the winner of the South Carolina primary. Jeff, what does this mean?\nJeff: Wolf, it clearly means the handsome John Edwards is not ready to concede and become front-runner John Kerry's running mate, as we, the media have almost BEGGED him to do.\nJudy: That's right. At this time, I'd ask our viewers to follow the swaying watch on your television screen. Kerry-Edwards … Kerry-Edwards … Kerryyy-Edwaaardsss … \nWolf: Judy, I hate to cut you off there, but CNN political analyst Paul Begala is reporting live in Columbia, S.C. Paul, what do you make of all of this?\nPaul: Wolf, I tell ya, this is …\nWolf: Paul, I hate to cut you off there, but even though there are still 53 minutes until the polls close in Missouri, CNN is prepared to project John Kerry the winner of Missouri. Jeff, explain for our viewers how we can do this.\nJeff: Well viewers, we can do this by the exit polls. They're unreliable surveys big media outlets give voters as they leave voting sites so we have something to talk about for five hours of election coverage. Also, we really want to say it before the other networks. Up yours, Fox News!\nJudy: Ha ha, we clearly learned nothing from the 2000 election, Wolf.\nWolf: Thanks for that. Paul Begala, what do you think Wes Clark or Howard Dean need to do to clinch this nomination?\nPaul: Short of an endorsement from the second coming of Christ, Wolf, I really can't say.\nWolf: Thanks, Paul. Jeff Greenfield now has news Sen. Joe Lieberman will drop out if he doesn't win the very small, yet supposedly important state of Delaware. Lieberman poured hours of labor and spent thousands of dollars there, and it'd sure be a shame if he didn't win. All of that aside, CNN is now confident to project John Kerry the winner of the Delaware primary.\nJeff: Look Wolf, Lieberman's a good guy who was viciously stabbed in the back when Al Gore endorsed Dean. His concession will be the equivalent of shooting a rabid dog -- it's sort of sad, but we know it has to be done.\nWolf: Thanks, Jeff. We'll be regurgitating everything we've said so far about the primary elections for seven more hours, so stay tuned to CNN for our special coverage of America Votes 2004.
(02/05/04 5:00am)
You can't help but feel sorry for the Friedman family. The Long Island family was tragically torn apart in the late 1980's when the father and one of the sons were accused, perhaps rightly or wrongly, and sent to jail for child molestation. But while watching "Capturing the Friedmans," an agonizing and frustrating documentary by first-time filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, you also can't help but feel like you have absolutely no business sticking your nose in their lives.\nIt's a melancholy and unsettlingly voyeuristic film ("'The Real World' for the PBS crowd," panned Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan), and it's obsessively full of disturbing home movies. It's a controversial film, and I understand why: a second DVD is full of special features including questions, answers, heated debates, interviews and previously unseen home videos.\nDespite my reservations, the film was not short on praise; it won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and landed on over a hundred mainstream critics' top ten lists. It does show the chaos that ensues when a family encounters something so shocking, and it does show the imperfections of our legal system. \nMaybe Jarecki wanted me to feel uncomfortable watching "Capturing," but if that's the case, he also effectively made me wish I had never had such a close look at such troubled lives.
(02/05/04 1:41am)
You can't help but feel sorry for the Friedman family. The Long Island family was tragically torn apart in the late 1980's when the father and one of the sons were accused, perhaps rightly or wrongly, and sent to jail for child molestation. But while watching "Capturing the Friedmans," an agonizing and frustrating documentary by first-time filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, you also can't help but feel like you have absolutely no business sticking your nose in their lives.\nIt's a melancholy and unsettlingly voyeuristic film ("'The Real World' for the PBS crowd," panned Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan), and it's obsessively full of disturbing home movies. It's a controversial film, and I understand why: a second DVD is full of special features including questions, answers, heated debates, interviews and previously unseen home videos.\nDespite my reservations, the film was not short on praise; it won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and landed on over a hundred mainstream critics' top ten lists. It does show the chaos that ensues when a family encounters something so shocking, and it does show the imperfections of our legal system. \nMaybe Jarecki wanted me to feel uncomfortable watching "Capturing," but if that's the case, he also effectively made me wish I had never had such a close look at such troubled lives.
(02/02/04 3:53am)
You probably saw a lot of interesting things last night if you watched the Super Bowl, but here are two things I bet you didn't see: commercials from the advocacy groups MoveOn and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.\nThat's because both groups, which tried to buy ads at market rate -- reportedly in excess of $2 million -- for the most-watched TV event each year, were turned down by CBS, a unit of Viacom, Inc. \nThe network told MoveOn, a progressive political advocacy group, and PETA, an animal rights advocacy group, it would not air their ads on the grounds they violated policy and the network doesn't run ads on "controversial issues of public importance."\n"We have a longstanding, clear and consistent policy of not allowing advocacy ads so deep pockets cannot control one side of a public policy debate," said Dana McClintock, senior vice president of communications for CBS.\nMoveOn's low-key spot, called "Child's Pay," features a bluesy soundtrack and images of children working menial jobs. It's capped off with the tag: "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?"\nPETA's ad claims "Meat can cause impotence" when a meat-eating pizza delivery man isn't up for the job with two scantily clad women. Instead, the girls snuggle with a vegetarian.\n(This is comparatively tame to past campaigns PETA has employed, including one which compared egg-farm chickens to Holocaust concentration camp victims.)\nCBS's rejection of the ads would make a lot more sense, however, if its standards were consistent. Instead, according to the online magazine, Ad Age, the network had no intention of preventing other ads which were both advocating and controversial in nature. \nThe American Legacy Foundation and Philip Morris USA were allowed to run anti-smoking ads, and for the third year in a row, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy used tax-payer dollars to run its two messages about the drug war -- a spot a few years ago linked recreational drug use to the financing of global terrorism.\nAh, another longstanding, clear and consistent policy upheld once again.\nBut I suppose being faced with a choice between the drug war and the federal budget, it's easy to see what any rational person would find more controversial.\nConcluding CBS does indeed run advocacy and controversial spots, you have to ask why the two rejected spots were turned down and why a major network was allowed to do it.\nAmazingly enough, the answer seems to be, because they wanted to -- and because they can.\nAlex Jones, the director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, told www.salon.com, "The [airwave] rules are exactly what the owner of the news medium wants them to be, and they are not rules, they are simply choices."\n "The long and short of it is they don't have to run any advertisement they don't want to," he concluded.\n Should we expect a lawsuit? Don't count on it. Even though airwaves are public domain -- that is, media powerhouses don't own their frequencies -- there is no right to free speech on network TV, even if, like MoveOn and PETA, you can pay the admission price.\nYou don't have to agree with the ads to realize conglomerates are moving slowly, but surely, toward having twisted control over what we see and the news we hear.\nPeople should expect and demand CBS and the other media giants have clear standards, either allowing all issue ads or limiting all issue ads, and those standards should be enforced. Anything else is clearly censorship.
(01/29/04 5:00am)
I'm not entirely sure I know everything that was going on in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, an action flick new to DVD from hotshot director-writer-producer-editor-cinematographer-composer-special effects supervisor-production designer, Robert Rodriguez, and I'm not entirely sure that matters.\nBut here's what I do know: Mexico is essentially a sequel to Rodriguez's 1995 pulp hit Desperado, (but it's not required viewing in order to see this movie). The plot is murky: Antonio Banderas plays El Mariachi, a musician/hit man, who becomes entangled in international espionage involving a rogue CIA agent (Johnny Depp, who certainly had an excellent 2003 with this wonderful performance and his romp in Pirates of the Caribbean). \nThere are also drug lords, corrupt generals and quirky side characters, but they aren't important. What is important are the action sequences, and there are plenty of them. Rodriguez shot Mexico on a Sony 24-frames-per-second digital high-definition camera, and the shots are flashy and fancy while the picture is bright and crisp.\nThere is plenty of bonus material on the DVD, including a lecture from Rodriguez about the advantages of digital over film, a behind-the-scenes documentary, DVD-ROM games and even a cooking special showing how to make the Mexican dish Depp's character eats.\nThere's definitely a good time to be had in Mexico.
(01/28/04 11:03pm)
I'm not entirely sure I know everything that was going on in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, an action flick new to DVD from hotshot director-writer-producer-editor-cinematographer-composer-special effects supervisor-production designer, Robert Rodriguez, and I'm not entirely sure that matters.\nBut here's what I do know: Mexico is essentially a sequel to Rodriguez's 1995 pulp hit Desperado, (but it's not required viewing in order to see this movie). The plot is murky: Antonio Banderas plays El Mariachi, a musician/hit man, who becomes entangled in international espionage involving a rogue CIA agent (Johnny Depp, who certainly had an excellent 2003 with this wonderful performance and his romp in Pirates of the Caribbean). \nThere are also drug lords, corrupt generals and quirky side characters, but they aren't important. What is important are the action sequences, and there are plenty of them. Rodriguez shot Mexico on a Sony 24-frames-per-second digital high-definition camera, and the shots are flashy and fancy while the picture is bright and crisp.\nThere is plenty of bonus material on the DVD, including a lecture from Rodriguez about the advantages of digital over film, a behind-the-scenes documentary, DVD-ROM games and even a cooking special showing how to make the Mexican dish Depp's character eats.\nThere's definitely a good time to be had in Mexico.
(01/26/04 4:23am)
One of the things I realized while following presidential candidates around Iowa for the Jan. 19 caucus was that Americans so rarely get to see their presidents in action.\nWhen we do get to see them in action, it's before they're president -- while they're in campaign mode.\nOnce they ascend to the office of the presidency, however, they become detached from it all. In fact, the only time the president is constitutionally required to communicate with Americans is through the State of the Union, which until 1913 was typically done through a letter instead of a speech.\nCompare this to our allies across the ocean who have a much more in-your-face procedural style. When Parliament is in session, the Prime Minister of Great Britain is constitutionally required to field questions about a variety of subjects for 30 minutes a week.\n"Prime Minister's Questions," as they are called, are very popular in England, and the show is replayed in America on C-SPAN.\nIf you've never seen it, basically, the Prime Minister takes flak and is hit with questions from the politically right and the politically left and then inevitably responds with a very witty comeback. No member of Parliament is apparently ever satisfied, and the body politic is always shouting inaudible things in its dismay, as depicted in this fictitious yet applicable exchange:\nMember: Does the Prime Minister have anything to say to my constituents of South Brookingshirewood North who are among the FOUR people in this country who have lost jobs under the Prime Minister's awful economic programs?\nParliament: Rabble rabble rabble!\nPrime Minister: I welcome the question from my friend and would tell him that I have spoken directly to his constituents and, as of this morning, found them employment.\nParliament: Rabble rabble rabble!\nIt can be completely silly (that's government for you), and sometimes it's more comical than anything else in the 9 p.m. time slot on Sundays, but what's most important is that beyond all the laughs, the Prime Minister is actually being held accountable for statements, positions and issues -- in person and live on television -- by fellow elected officials.\nAmerica needs this. So why don't we have it?\nWell, for one thing, it's really tough, and it should be. I imagine few presidents in our nation's history would have fared well doing it. It might have even caused some not to run for reelection -- or even run in the first place. It might be a clever way to thin out the herd.\nFor another, some would say we already have something like that -- the press corps. That sentiment is understandable, but wrong.\nThe press isn't invulnerable. Some administrations are particularly talented at keeping the press at bay, leaving urgent stories floating in the air. And when the press doesn't have anything to report on, they will create something.\nThey will often quote anonymous sources, run with the same storylines they seem to create and milk their guess-work punditry to fill airtime or column inches (everyone remember "The unstoppable Howard Dean will win the Iowa caucuses"?).\nIf we're looking for a way to start holding our leaders accountable for their actions and forcing them to level with the American people, we couldn't go wrong implementing a required Q-and-A between the president and Congress similar to the "Prime Minister's Questions."\nI suppose it certainly wouldn't hurt anything, except maybe the stale and distant status quo.
(01/22/04 5:00am)
Swimming Pool is supposed to be a psychological thriller, but it plays out like a third- or fourth-rate Hitchcock knock-off. It's frustratingly shallow, surprisingly conceited and gratuitously un-erotic, contrary to what it'd have you believe with Ludivine Sagnier sprawled out in a skimpy bikini on the DVD's cover.\nCharlotte Rampling plays Sarah Morton, an acclaimed British mystery writer who is vacationing in her publisher's French bungalow to rekindle writing sparks for her new novel. She encounters Julie (Sagnier) there, her publisher's estranged daughter, and then, nothing. At least, nothing happens for a long time. Sarah writes. Julie swims. Sarah eats. Julie sleeps around. The majority (in fact, almost all) of Pool is slow, boring and too pretentious. All of it is done to set us up for a big payoff, which might have been okay if the payoff was actually big and not as miserable as what director François Ozon delivers.\nOzon, unlike the graceful Hitchcock, has directed an incredibly sloppy film, which may explain the perplexing lack of special features. And in the end, when Sarah's publisher critiques her finished work as "too subtle, too abstract, and where's the action?" I felt myself wanting to run up to Ozon and ask him the same damn thing.
(01/21/04 9:57pm)
Swimming Pool is supposed to be a psychological thriller, but it plays out like a third- or fourth-rate Hitchcock knock-off. It's frustratingly shallow, surprisingly conceited and gratuitously un-erotic, contrary to what it'd have you believe with Ludivine Sagnier sprawled out in a skimpy bikini on the DVD's cover.\nCharlotte Rampling plays Sarah Morton, an acclaimed British mystery writer who is vacationing in her publisher's French bungalow to rekindle writing sparks for her new novel. She encounters Julie (Sagnier) there, her publisher's estranged daughter, and then, nothing. At least, nothing happens for a long time. Sarah writes. Julie swims. Sarah eats. Julie sleeps around. The majority (in fact, almost all) of Pool is slow, boring and too pretentious. All of it is done to set us up for a big payoff, which might have been okay if the payoff was actually big and not as miserable as what director François Ozon delivers.\nOzon, unlike the graceful Hitchcock, has directed an incredibly sloppy film, which may explain the perplexing lack of special features. And in the end, when Sarah's publisher critiques her finished work as "too subtle, too abstract, and where's the action?" I felt myself wanting to run up to Ozon and ask him the same damn thing.
(01/20/04 4:30am)
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA -- The lands of Iowa are flat, with barren fields under the ugly frost of January. The highways are long and scenic, though Iowa is a state with nothing special to look at and provides little in the way of recreational enjoyment.\nThere is credit due to the kind of people who would live here. And every four years, they are inundated by candidates who seem to love it here, perhaps only politically, in an attempt to satisfy the picky electorate with down-home folksiness and win the great Iowa caucus.\nFor the past few months presidential aspirants and the media circus that follows them have descended upon the people of Iowa, who seem to take it in stride, and secretly revel in the pride that is associated with their first caucus.\nThe process has been going on since 1972, and Iowans are incredibly patient, if not accepting, of their candidates' rigorous schedules. At a Saturday night rally for Sen. John Kerry at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Kerry's college-aged daughters give short stump speeches to stall and fill time before their father arrives.\nIn the press corps, David Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times, waits for Kerry to arrive.\n"They're never on time anymore," Brooks said while the audience of nearly 400 waits more than an hour before the senator arrives. And when he does arrive, it's as if all is miraculously forgotten.\nKerry stands relaxed, despite the fact that he's had an intense week of campaigning that buoyed his faltering campaign into a statistical four-way split. \nOn the day before the caucus Kerry was leading the pack, followed by Sen. John Edwards, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and Rep. Dick Gephardt, according to a poll released in the Des Moines Register.\n"The George W. Bush administration is leading the United States of America in a radically wrong direction," Kerry declares to an applauding crowd. "I have come here to mark with you the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency!"\nKerry is accompanied by key endorsements, including Iowa's popular attorney general Tom Miller and former Sen. Gary Hart, who introduced Kerry promoting him as a candidate with strong credentials for homeland security.\nKerry's event feels organized -- maybe too organized, with different color nametags signaling your support for him, or that you are undecided -- and he brings with him political powerhouses. The rally across town the next morning for Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio feels the exact opposite.\nKucinich spoke to a crowd of 75 in a small, old building which doubles as an art gallery. It's the kind of place you'd expect Kucinich supporters to rally in. He moves from the stage onto the floor, and eventually pushes folding chairs out of his way so he can walk into the audience as he fields questions.\n"Today I'm running to light up America!" he screams, and the crowd goes wild.\nBetween 300 and 400 people turn out for the Edwards rally which is held in a venue that should comfortably hold no more than 200. \nEdwards, who arrives late as well, tells the crowd there are actually two Americans, one for the advantageous and one for the disenchanted. He shouts that there is only one candidate who can take on President Bush in all regions of the country.\n"I will be competitive in the North, in the Midwest, in the West, and 'tahl-kin' like this, in the South! The South is not Bush's backyard. I will beat George W. Bush in MY backyard, you can take that to the bank!"\n-- Contact staff writer Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.
(01/15/04 5:00am)
Lonnie (Eddie Griffin), Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and G (Anthony Anderson) are three single guys who become fathers simultaneously and have to travel down the long road to maturity together in My Baby's Daddy, a movie that packs a pathetic punch in almost every way possible.\nThere is very little plot, so the movie relies on its characters, most of whom aren't very interesting. Rap star Method Man proves to be an exception, but when he arrives halfway through as No Good, G's criminal cousin, it's too late to save the movie. True talents like Amy Sedaris, John Amos and Scott Thompson turn up in throwaway cameos, but they are still good for a few chuckles. \nAs a comedy, Daddy fails in the worst way. Obvious jokes can be seen from a mile away, and they're simply not funny. Ill prepared fathers taking care of clueless babies isn't an original premise. Undoubtedly, these movies always involve dads that run into messy diapers or finally calm their crying infants in the most unorthodox of ways (for good measure, this film has both).\nThe movie attempts a promising display of multiculturalism with many characters crossing ethnic barriers for love. Yet the film decides to squander such opportunities on overtly racist humor. Two hopeless white rappers, speak in flamboyant slang accompanied graciously by subtitles ("Weeerdz" is "I concur with him"), and does anybody actually think Asians mispronouncing L's is funny?\nI'm not entirely sure what the writers had in mind when they somehow managed to squeeze in an eerie attempt at heartwarming family values inbetween the drug use, drinking and petty unpunished theft. \nThis movie is a quintessential "January dump away," or a film so poor the studio releases it in a cold month without critic screenings. The culprits for its failures would have to be director Cheryl Dunye and all four lackluster screenwriters. \nThe scary thing is, with such a jagged plot, it felt like there might have been much more to this movie that luckily ended up on the cutting room floor. And that may be the movie's sole accomplishment: with a running time of less than an hour and a half, it makes you realize no bad movie can ever be too short.
(01/15/04 5:00am)
Although the raging war in Underworld has been described as "Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves," it feels quite distant from the Bard's original tale or something like West Side Story and much closer to other thrillers like The Crow or Blade. No matter; Underworld is a sleek success starring the beautiful Kate Beckinsale as Selene, a vampire whose allegiance falters when she meets Michael (Scott Speedman), a human who is mysteriously important to the werewolves.\nThe true star of the film though is its look. A dark, rainy, gothic urban landscape full of blues, grays and blacks is captured through stunning cinematography. The make-up and special effects are duly impressive, and the bonus material on the disc is full of featurettes with behind-the-scenes looks at how the film was made, along with a commentary by director Len Wiseman and his screenwriters. A second commentary for the film includes technical designers and the visual effects supervisor.\nThe film feels too long, especially toward the end when the elaborate stunts and action sequences become repetitive. Patience is also required as the often confusing mystery surrounding Michael unfolds. Still, Underworld is less about story and more about the dark world displayed onscreen, which is visually stunning.