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The film invents a skill that no human has ever possessed: to see for two seconds reliably into the future. Such a capability comes in handy. You can win against the Casino, you can prevent a robber from killing two people, and more.Yet our hero (Nicolas Cage) is ambivalent about his skill. It helps him with his small-time magician act in Vegas and allows him to improve his income by beating the blackjack dealer. But during childhood, it also subjected him to a visit with an endless number of psychologists and counselors who wanted to help this strange little kid. When the government now identifies him as someone who might be able to stop terrorist from triggering a nuclear bomb in LA, our hero is not eager to sign up. But a dedicated FBI agent (miscast by Julianne Moore) and the terrorists who learn about his skills are not willing to let him mend his own business. Meanwhile our hero has discovered that in one instance he can see more than two seconds into the future: a beautiful girl promises to be his life partner. The beauty of girl (played by Jessica Biel) more than the nuclear bomb threat propels the film forward.
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Ocean’s 13
Ocean’s 11 struck me as sterile. The third episode of the George Clooney’s star vehicle has considerable charm. An old friend of Ocean (Clooney) gets screwed by a ruthless Vegas casino owner (Al Pacino). Ocean rounds up his gang of thieves to rectify this injustice. I loved the final sentence when George Clooney and Matt Damon say “good-bye” to each other on the Vegas airport. Damon: “I see you when I see you.”
The 100 Most Influential Americans of All Time
The Atlantic Monthly came up with this list:
1 Abraham Lincoln
He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over America’s second founding.
2 George Washington
He made the United States possible—not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself.
Spiderman 3
It takes imaginative writers to stretch a story across multiple films. Spiderman 3 lacked such talent. Compared to the first two installments, the film feels uninspired, repetitive and contrived. Audiences can only stomach so much transformation in the lead character before they will turn way.
The Last Mimzy
On a previous flight this film was offered to me for lunch. I passed. Without any sound the beginning looked slow and quite lame. On this new flight I tuned in and discovered that the story has unexpected depth. Extraterrestrial creatures have come to earth to recapture what was lost in perfecting their ability to clone people: the human soul. The ET creatures have one last chance to copy that human quality before they will be too far away to reach earth. For those of us who had security blankets for many years, the film conjures up familiar feelings from childhood.
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Fracture
Anthony Hopkins plays a sociopath similar to the one he portrayed in Silence of the Lambs. Hopkins’ character shoots his wife when he discovers she is cheating on him with a police officer. Without any remorse, he tries to get off the hook for the murder by outsmarting the good-looking district attorney. The film is not terrible, but it also contains one basic flow: we don’t know the husband well enough to understand why he would kill his wife. What propelled him remains an utter mystery, lending the whole movie an artificial character.
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Someone’s in the Closet With Sylvester
The underage sex trial of R. Kelly is about to start. Just in time for the publicity, R. Kelly has released a CD and now also a DVD. Life is going to get a lot simpler if he gets convicted.
NT Times: ON Tuesday the R&B singer R. Kelly released “Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 13-22,” a DVD of the newest episodes of his video hip-hopera. Featuring 26 characters, byzantine twists of plot and cliffhanger endings, it has a story that can perplex even the most devoted fans.
Andrew Kuo, the artist and blogger, hunkered down with all 22 installments, mapping out the complex interpersonal relationships. “I have a feeling that R. Kelly has about 40 napkins on his office desk, covered with diagrams and arrows,” Mr. Kuo said. The entire series will be shown on the Independent Film Channel in September.
A Picture Guide to R. Kelly’s Complicated Life
Continue ReadingGrandma, what are you doing naked in bed?
It is commonly held that old people are no longer interested in sex. Indeed, young children and grandparents are stereo-typed as sexless creatures. Now comes the first scientific study that investigates just how sexually active old people are. I am looking forward to a study of children under the age of ten.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Isn’t it interesting that people have such a soft spot for bank robbers? Forcing a grandmother to hand over all her savings and shooting her right in the head would not make a good story. But robbing a bank does not stir peoples’ indignation. The impersonal bank is not perceived to be a real victim. And if clients are scared to death during the robbery, does this upset the public? Well, if no one gets hurt during the action that’s just the cost of an exciting robbery. It requires some brinkmanship and the clients should be grateful for being part of such a coup! Buch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) make a living robbing trains and banks in the waning days of Wild West. The tolerance for such a line of work is clearly on the decline out West. Butch and the Kid find it harder and harder to make ends meet. The movie starts slow but it turns out to be a very special Western.
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