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‘Fair Game’: Spying in the Suburbs
Nov 9, 2010 It’s not quite “Ozzie and Harriet with Security Clearances,” but there is something inescapably unedifying in watching the Wilsons bicker their way through the clichés of marital disaffection in a case that—let’s face it—was of small import in the context of the much larger crimes perpetrated by a pusillanimous power elite.The film is more about the deterioration of suburban decorum than it is about the deterioration of honor and probity in the upper reaches of American government.
‘Client 9’: The Rehabilitation of Eliot Spitzer
Nov 6, 2010 A confession: I’ve never liked Eliot Spitzer He has his virtues: He is relentlessly—and not stupidly—articulate He has the right enemies, be they corporate titans or the endemically corrupt denizens of the New York legislature He is natty in his well-cut suits (by Hickey-Freeman, as the New York Times informs us) .
‘Carlos’: A Different Kind of Terrorism
Oct 17, 2010 “Carlos” is a fictionalized but persuasively believable biography of celebrity terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a man known for his indolence as well as support for a whole gamut of revolutionary causes.
A Glimpse Into the Heart of a Rotten System
Oct 9, 2010 I have now sat through Charles Ferguson’s “Inside Job”— the nonfiction version of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”— and I still don’t fully understand our endless financial crisis This does not mean that “Inside Job” is a failureI have now sat through Charles Ferguson’s documentary and I still don’t fully understand our endless financial crisis.
Wall Street Revisited: Greed Is Good and Dull
Sep 25, 2010 The inherent problem with Oliver Stone's follow-up to his 1987 classic is that it does not have the courage of its own nastiest convictions.
‘The Tillman Story’: Myth, Mystery and Celebrity
Aug 19, 2010 Thanks to the Establishment’s truly spectacular mishandling of this case—will they never learn, you can live with screw-ups, never coverups?—Pat Tillman left the country of celebrity and entered the land of myth, innocently, even perhaps tragically.Thanks to the Establishment’s truly spectacular mishandling of his case, Pat Tillman left the country of celebrity and entered the land of myth, innocently, even perhaps tragically.
‘Countdown to Zero’ — or Apocalypse, Whichever Comes First
Jul 30, 2010 "Countdown to Zero" is an intelligent, graphically sophisticated documentary film about what is almost certainly the most important issue confronting the world today -- nuclear proliferation.
Into the Valley of Death Rode the … 15?
Jun 25, 2010 The documentary "Restrepo" paints an empathetic portrait of U.S. soldiers at an Afghanistan outpost, but it keeps its audience at a distance.