Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp’s Malthusian fable of post-Apartheid Johannesburg. District 9, a violent science fiction movie set in a Johannesburg slum inhabited by 1.8 million feckless refugee space aliens, is the critical and commercial ($37 million opening weekend) hit of the moment. ...
The publicity machine is now gearing up for documentarian Ken Burns's twelve-hour extravaganza, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, which will run for six straight nights on PBS starting September 27. This being a Ken Burns series, the predominant theme of The National Parks will be ...
I was trying to watch with my wife the DVD of He's Just Not That Into You, which is to romantic comedies what Watchmen is to superhero flicks: a confusing bundle of plotlines about the upscale romantic entanglements of what used to be called yuppies. To pass the time while a heartbroken Ben Affleck ...
Barack Obama, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and the African-American Master Class Countless pundits have debated whether the Henry Louis Gates Jr. brouhaha is about race or class. In truth, Barack Obama's maladroit but heartfelt interjection of his own prejudices into the controversy stemmed from a ...
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince earned a record $394 million worldwide in its opening week, an extraordinary amount for a film based on the sixth (and penultimate) installment in J.K. Rowling's series of fantasy novels. The striking title certainly didn"t hurt. The term "Half-Blood ...
Every so often, an action hit comes out of nowhere"Mad Max, Terminator, Ricci v. DeStefano. Inevitably, we start hoping that the big budget follow-up can keep the same excitement going, just with huger explosions. A few times"Road Warrior, Terminator II"our dreams come true. I"ve ...
Public Enemies, Michael Mann's dual biopic about Depression Era bankrobber John Dillinger (played by an introverted Johnny Depp) and G-Man Melvin Purvis (an impassive Christian Bale), is representative of a growing micro-genre: the artistically ambitious crime period piece so stuffed with ...
Jacko was the King of Celebrity Eugenics. The late Michael Jackson was a strange individual, but his various obsessions, such as weight loss, whitening his skin, and expensively designing his children, were hardly unique to him. They are shared by more than few of his legion of female fans. To ...
How Multiculturalism Killed the Counter Culture When I was eleven in 1970, Alvin Toffler published a book entitled Future Shock, which prophesied ever faster cultural change. In the wake of the tumultuous 1960s, this sounded like a sure bet. Hence, Future Shock became a huge bestseller. Yet, ...
With Larry David back in the news this week for starring in (perhaps unsurprisingly) the latest Woody Allen movie, Whatever Works, it's worth reviewing David's misunderstood accomplishments. David, of course, was the co-creator of Seinfeld. Jason Alexander initially modeled his performance as ...
