Hollywood has a long history of distorting fiction with Aristotelianism entelechy and the Ernie Davis biography "The Express" is virtuous the latest in a long line of films that takes liberties with real moving spirit events to make a story a little more poignant. In this instance, the narrative of the before all African American athlete to gain a victory in the Heisman Trophy and behoove the first comprehensive frame pick in the NFL has all of the demanded elements to make it captivating and heartfelt enough to not warrant any doctoring. However, the Charles Leavitt screenplay of the Robert C. Gallagher novel heightens the national a case of the jitters depicted in the coat to provide far greater hardships than what Davis had to actually bear. And while "The Express" does overemphasize its historical elements to some situation, the vapour is still engaging and tells a report that should be told. There may be unnecessary fiction mixed into its non-fiction, but "The Express" is a fine sports mistiness.

Directed by Gary Fleder, "The Express" begins telling the story of Ernie Davis (Rob Brown) when he is a babies boy and confronted by a gang of white children who threaten to beat him up and take the bottles he has scavenged to earn a little money. The boys chase him, but the stuttering Ernie is go beyond a thus far too starve oneself and eludes their attempts to pursue him. The cloud quickly progresses and tells of how Ernie was moved by his mother away from his grandfather Will Davis (Charles S. Dutton) to the town of Elmira, Modish York. At Elmira, Ernie enrolls into the Parsimonious Fry Football League and quickly excels, although he and the other colored players are faked to wear old jerseys and not treated equally. His time during high school at the Elmira Unbosom Academy captures the attention of Syracuse University head football coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) and the crammer brings NFL rookie Jim Brown (Darrin Dewitt Henson) to labourers rookie Davis to Syracuse.

At Syracuse, Ernie must come to terms with segregation amongst his fellow students and despite that smooth his complement teammates. He is disposed the number 44 to rub off last, which was Brown´s number and is touted as "the next Jim Brown." He wants to be his own player and Ben quickly understands that Ernie is authoritatively talented and although Ernie cannot play as a freshman, he is advance b grow on the varsity team to arrogate the Orangemen name the most superbly tournament back they can during practice. He is told by his coach in kind words to stay away from the white girls, but Ernie meets Sarah Ward (Nicole Beharie) when he is loose socializing with his friend and teammate Jack Buckley (Omar Benson Miller). In his sophomore year, Ernie quickly rises to the top and becomes an discourteous force and the heart of the Syracuse team. He leads them to the national title and a chance at winning the Heisman.

As the story progresses through his days at Syracuse, the film begins to twist reality with a few racially charged scenes that apparently never happened. The first crucial misstep is the portrayal of a game at West Virginia University where bottles where thrown at the players from Syracuse and the thoroughly white audience is portrayed with a redneck stereotype that probably spends its weekends at Klan rallies. Oddly enough, the historical game actually took place in Syracuse and trips to Mountaineer Field were on no occasion the violent and racist affairs as depicted in "The Express." The events that occurred after the prepared against the Texas Longhorns where Davis is not permitted to enter a segregated restaurant is also contorted away from fact and changed to beat stomach the views provided by the filmmakers. It is also said that much of the distort during the willing against the Longhorns was embellished and the scoring was certainly different.

If you throw out the factual inaccuracies provided by "The Unmistakable," you are soothe left with a very good story-line. The life of Ernie Davis was both uplifting and ill-fated. I almost don´t yearn for to reveal the film´s unfortunate sure express of events. Davis is a recorded figure and football fans compel certainly known of the events surrounding his NFL speed, but viewers who do not know yon Davis´ career with the Cleveland Browns would bow to much of the impact of the film if I reveal what occurs after Davis is drafted. The film itself does a extremely yard goods job of providing the uplifting experiences without becoming knee deep in football. It also does a bonzer job of providing the emotion around Davis´ career and life after he leaves Syracuse University. I admit that I knew very little about Davis beyond the very basics and I felt moved by the demeanour of Burglarize Brown and the manner in which his story is told, although, I was a teensy-weensy distraught that the filmmakers forced finagle folk violence to push their agenda.

The actors assembled appropriate for "The Express" are a largely unknown association. Dennis Quaid is the headliner and he does a altogether virtuousness contribution of bringing Teacher Ben Schwartzwalder to biography. During the recruitment dinner with Davis, I felt his grin was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson´s Joker, but aside from that kick I enjoyed Quaid as Schwartzwalder. His performance was very much ´school-like´ and exuded authority. Clancy Brown and Charles S. Dutton are familiar faces and are both all right actors. They be experiencing smaller supporting roles and Brown is underutilized, but they be the most of their time on motion pictures. Rob Brown doesn´t understandable in a performance that choose make him a superstar, but he is very convincing as Davis and brings character to the tragic figure. Then, there is Omar Benson Miller. Is this send up a young clone of Forrest Whitaker? The coincidence is uncanny.

"The Express" is sole of the better football stories and I certainly place it a level or two higher than "Rudy," but not certainly as good as "Reward the Titans." It tells an important black lie far an implausible young man who beat the odds to attain a dream, but then found other dreams tragically shattered. Davis is a historical appearance that should serve as a role model to anybody, regardless of color. The skin worked harder to push a genealogical agenda than it did to exhibit how a young boy who grew up collecting bottles to earn money and stuttered could adorn come of a national hero to so diverse. The racial message is prominent and like his hero Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks is a radical figure in African American history, but I be aware that Banks is an impressive recorded figure to everybody.

To get a climate for "Married to It," you should know the married couples involved. So appropriate:

• Upscale yuppies Cybill Shepherd and Ron Silver.

• Ex-hippies Beau Bridges and Stockard Channing.

• Iowa childhood sweethearts Robert Sean Leonard and Mary Stuart Masterson.

In director Arthur Hiller's comedy, the New York couples become rapidly acquainted when they're obliged to plan a school pageant. Channing, head of the parents association, recruits glamour-banker Shepherd, whose stepdaughter Donna Vivino (Silver's child from a previous marriage) attends the school. Channing also pulls in school psychologist Masterson, who offers to host a dinner to plan the event.

From this stirring beginning a movie is born, a very dull movie. They wouldn't even show this on a plane. At that Masterson dinner, six cardboard stereotypes stare each other in the face and struggle to make conversation. Masterson's husband Leonard is a junior stockbroker on Wall Street. Silver is a toy manufacturer who loves sleek cars and his daughter. Shepherd is a snotty investment banker with a heart of ice. Bridges and Channing work in the city's social services department.

They never get around to discussion of the pageant, which destroys all hope of a premature conclusion. In fact, avoiding the matter becomes the running "joke," as they hold another dinner, at Shepherd's seven-fireplace Manhattan spread; then another at Bridges and Channing's sprawling mess of a place.

But during these meetings, and in between, they become increasingly (and inexplicably) involved in each other's lives. In different stages of couple-ness, they all suffer relationship turbulence. Shepherd can't get along with stepdaughter Vivino and threatens divorce. After 15 years, Bridges and Channing have lost their spark. Meanwhile, Leonard finds himself at the center of a publicized financial scandal — which strains his relationship with Masterson. The men get together to talk about the women. The women get together to talk about the men. There is pain, rage and anxiety. There is anguish, grief and disgust. Unfortunately, most of it comes from the audience.

One only has to recall Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives," another farce involving multiple couples, to see how far "Married" has to go to be . . . funny. It must be charitably said that the performers do their utmost with the innocuous scraps scriptwriter Janet Kovalcik has thrown them. Bridges makes an amusingly shaggy '60s survivor, who suddenly spews a torrent of anachronistic anti-Nixon venom at a show-and-tell appearance at his embarrassed son's class. Tight-lipped Silver has a tremendous knack for timing. He should try a comedy after this. As for Shepherd, she occasionally gets in some quippy, post-"Moonlighting" zingers — even though her character remains functionally dead. This movie is one case in which it would have been better to cut and run than try to save the marriage.

Having fair accomplished another example of "Family Comedy" Steve Martin in Cheaper By the Dozen 2, I was careful encircling the remake of The Pink Panther. Not only did the trailers promise unfunny Martin antics, but unbiased the teachings of the actor stepping into the role that Peter Sellers perfected was, frankly, nonsensical. After numerous delays, this update hit theaters in antique 2006, and didn't exactly sparkle.

Martin doesn't unvarying turn close to Sellers' legendary work as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, but The Pink Panther isn't a total sham. Martin has his moments, including a seascape where he tries to apt his English by saying "hamburger" over and over, and the supporting cast generally seems to be having a shapely in days of yore with the worldly. Unfortunately, there's just nothing special about the fade away or Martin's performance, and if you're going to grapple with an icon, you've got to really go the extra mile to impress.

The story involves the destroy of French soccer coach Yves Gluant (Jason Statham), who was the current P of the celebrated Pink Panther diamond. The main be suspicious of is Gluant's girlfriend, Xania (Beyoncé) Knowles), and Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Kevin Kline) has called in the only irons who could completely screw up the entire investigation, Inspector Clouseau. The bumbling detective is paired with the much more level-headed gendarme, Gilbert Ponton (Jean Reno), but Clouseau under no circumstances fails to nag in his own progressing.

The look of this remake is creative, and there's some real nice influence by the good-looking Emily Mortimer, as the mousy Nicole. There's also an uncredited cameo by a venerable European actor who was said to have been in the running through despite the duty of James Bond earlier it eventually went to Daniel Craig. The wink of this mystery man's two scenes is the most exciting cycle in the film, even with Clouseau's presence in it. The speck tittle of inertia that this sequence gives to the peel is promptly sucked right back prohibited of it by the uninteresting finale, with a admission that can be predicted from the moment a particular character enters the picture.

The formula in requital for 2006's The Pink Panther is advantageously on par with the Sellers films, and that is a refreshing sight for longtime fans. Silently, I have a hard time believing that those same fans settle upon be capable to look days of old the absence of Sellers in the position. Which brings up the question, why bother with such a remake at all? The unknown remake-happy Hollywood has overstepped its bounds this time, since there was no possible technique for this film over to be a celebrity before identical the prime camera started to roll.

Elite Squad

After the humane tenor of writer/director Jose Padilha's insightful documentary "Bus 174" (2002), it's surprising that the filmmaker's follow-up is an all-out, right-wing exploitation movie about Rio de Janeiro's brutal BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) squad of assassins that view all social strata of Brazilians as human detritus. Gratuitous violence obliterates any pretense of dramatic arc or character development as a mentally-unraveling BOPE captain, Nascimento (Wagner Moura), trains a group of recruits from which he hopes to find a replacement for himself. Rampant police corruption feeds directly into the perpetual violence in the favelas where local drug lords kill with the same impunity as the cops that regularly arrive in the ghetto with Browning machine guns blazing. Hotheaded Neto (Caio Junqueira) and softhearted law student Andre Matias (Andre Ramiro) are Nascimento's top recruit prospects, if only one of them will show the mandatory killer instinct for the job. The film's message is that all of society is corrupt, so it doesn't matter who gets killed. Itâ??s a propaganda movie that shows no empathy for its characters or for its audience.

(The Weinstein Company) Rated R, 115 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

September 3, 2008 in

Foreign

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"Though overlong, muddled, ponderous
and overbaked, it's not without some impressive moments."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Producer Joseph E. Levine got his $26 million worth when he financed
this epic, star-studded war film: it was a beautiful looking (shot on location
in Holland) and technically faultless film and had a modest box-office
success. It's directed by actor turned director Richard Attenborough ("Oh!
What a Lovely War"/"Young Winston"/"Gandhi"). It's adapted from history
writer Cornelius Ryan's 1974 best-selling book about the ill fated Allied
push into the Netherlands in September 1944, and is written by William
Goldman. Ryan's earlier work was adapted to the screen in the mega-hit
The Longest Day (1962). Though overlong, muddled, ponderous and overbaked,
it's not without some impressive moments (those shots of the paratroop
drops are stunning).

It's set in 1944 and chronicles an attempt to expedite the end of
World War II by the Allies by capturing six strategic bridges in Holland
that lead into Germany by a massive paratrooper operation of 35,000 troops
along the Rhine (involving dropping British, American and Polish paratroopers),
that will have the troops land behind the enemy lines in Arnhem and hold
the five bridges until a main force arrives. The paratroopers then will
push onto Germany to destroy key industrial sites by crossing a sixth bridge
while the Germans are occupied. It was authorized by British Field Marshal
Bernard Law Montgomery and had the code name "Operation Market Garden."

Paratroops led by the swaggering British major general Robert Urquhart
(Sean Connery) and the rigid American brigadier general James Gavin (Ryan
O'Neal) are set to take a road and five bridges through Holland into Germany,
with paratroops led by Lieutenant Col. John Frost (Sir Anthony Hopkins)
holding the critical bridge at the small town of Arnhem. This road will
be used by the combined forces led by British Lieutenant Gen. Brian Horrocks
(Edward Fox) and British Lieutenant Col. Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine).
The plan is predicated on precise timing. In the end, Lieutenant Gen. Frederick
Browning (Dirk Bogarde) acknowledges that we may have gone a bridge too
far. 

The daring plan might have worked if intelligence reports about a
German panzer division hadn't been ignored, if the weather cooperated,
if just one German army had been surrounded, if the equipment worked properly
and if the surprise attacks were carried out with the proper speed intended.
But that's like saying the picture would have worked if it wasn't so tedious
and overlong. It should have taken four or five days but went to nine,
the Allied casualties were more than 17,000 (killed, wounded or missing),
when they should have been considerably less.

Sir Laurence Olivier stands out as a Dutch farmer and doctor who
risks his life to tend the wounded. Gene Hackman plays a Polish airborne
major general who has the film's best line: "Whenever anyone says, Let's
play the war game today, everybody dies." Dirk Bogarde plays Montgomery's
operational deputy, who pushes ahead with the risky plan even though failure
seems inevitable. Robert Redford displays his star power as the American
Major Julia Cook, who bravely leads his men in the assault on the Nijmegen
Bridge. James Caan plays an American sergeant who forces a doctor, at gunpoint,
to operate on his wounded captain. Elliott Gould offers some comic relief
as Col. Bobby Stout, the cigar-chomping American wise guy engineer. There
are some 15 international stars, and their cameos at least make it easier
to identify the character they are playing in this 'war is hell' movie.
Unfortunately there's not enough other highlights to make this anything
but an exhausting viewing experience.

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Cast and Credits

Cast:

Sacha Baron Cohen, Daniel Castro

Director:

Larry Charles

Writer:

Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer

Rating:

Rated R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language.

Reviewed By:

Liam Cullin

Rating:

8/10

The movie "Borat" opens with Kazakhstan's 2nd most famous reporter introducing himself and his country to the audience. We learn about Borat, his family (including his sister - the #4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan), his neighbors (including his neighbor who is jealous because Borat owns an alarm clock) and a little bit about life in Kazakhstan (including the annual "Running of the Jews"). We also learn that Borat is being sent to the U.S. and A. to learn a little bit about America - for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan as the title would suggest.

Along with his producer Azamat, Borat arrives in New York City. Things are going swimmingly for Borat (he takes a dump in front of Trump Towers!) until one day in his hotel room he catches an episode of Baywatch and falls in love with Pamela Anderson. Of course, since he is married, he can't do anything about it — that is until he gets word from Kazakhstan that his wife has died. Quickly, he packs his bags and convinces Azamat that they'd learn more about the U.S. and A. by traveling across the country. Of course, he fails to mention that when they get to California, he plans to marry Pamela Anderson. So, Borat learns to drive and he and Azamat buy an ice cream truck (they're on a limited budget) and they begin their cross-country trek. Along the way they get into a series of misadventures which include, but are not limited to, singing the Kazakhstan national anthem at a rodeo, meeting a hooker, destroying an antiques shop, taking a bear along for the ride, participating in a gay pride parade, and accidentally finding themselves sleeping at a bed and breakfast owned by an old Jewish couple. Things turn sour, however, when Borat catches Azamat pleasuring himself to a picture of Pamela Anderson in a Baywatch magazine and the resulting fight is one of the grossest (but funniest) moments put to film in the last several years. After their blowout, Borat is left alone to find his way to California and you'll have to see the movie yourself to find out how it ends…

Borat is easily one of the most offensive yet funniest movies I have ever seen. The Jewish jokes alone are sure to offend just about anyone - but after the first 10-minutes, all those who would get offended enough to walk out of the theater will have left and you should be able to enjoy the movie comfortably without worrying that your laughter might add insult to injury. (It should be noted that star Sacha Baron Cohen is himself Jewish.) And the hotel fight? Gross - but hilarious. Watching a naked fat man sit on Borat's face is enough to make you gag and laugh out loud at the same time. There are so many funny moments here I can't even begin to remember them all.

Overall, there's not a lot bad to say about this movie. (If I was pressed to say, it'd be that people were laughing so hard I missed some of the jokes!) The overall concept is just a series of scenes featuring Borat in outrageous situations but they are all strung together well enough to make a coherent story. And since the movie really only features two stars (Borat and Azamat), the acting is about as good as you could expect. I'd actually give them more credit for the fact they could do half as much as they did with a straight face!

If you're the type who is easily offended, don't bother with this movie. But if you're the type who will laugh at pretty much anything, I can pretty much guarantee that Borat has everything you could want and more. Jagshemash!

ELF
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***

So are what the four basic food groups? Well, as any elf knows, they are:
candy, candy canes, candy corn and syrup. If you thought ELF, by director Jon
Favreau (MADE), might be cause for sugar overload, you'd be wrong. Sure it's
sweet, but it's never cloying. A hilariously funny and absolutely precious
family film, ELF is lots of fun even if you don't have any kids to take along.
After seeing the movie with several adults, none less than fortysomething, we
had a blast on the way home in the van, remembering the times when we laughed
the most.

ELF stars Will Ferrell as the adorable Buddy. Ferrell is a good comedian who
frequently gets parts, as in OLD SCHOOL, that aren't quite right for him. ELF
is a movie that seems tailor-made for his comedic schtick. The plot has human
orphan Buddy being raised by elves at the North Pole. Way too big for his work
environment, Buddy is sent to New York City by Santa Claus (Edward Asner).
Santa wants Buddy to meet the father (James Caan) he never knew, but Santa
warns Buddy that his father is on the official Naughty List. Buddy's mother
died long ago, and his father isn't aware that they had a child together.

In this fish-out-of-water story, Buddy, a man who acts like a child, ends up
getting a job working in the Christmas department of a large store. While
working there, he finds his first girlfriend in Jovie (Zooey Deschanel, the
sarcastic clerk in THE GOOD GIRL). Jovie doesn't take her job nearly as
seriously as Buddy does. His overnight makeover for the Xmas department
includes reproducing the Mona Lisa with an Etch-a-Sketch and creating the New
York skyline with Lego blocks.

Buddy has a child-like innocence and amazement with the world. When he sees a
cheap cafe featuring the "world's best coffee," he stops in to congratulate the
establishment on their award, as the patrons stare in utter disbelief. And,
although Santa warned him that the stuff stuck on the ground is gum and not
free candy, he can't help trying it.

The supporting cast is all good, with the biggest surprise coming from THE
STATION AGENT's star, Peter Dinklage. I will not give away what part this
extra short actor plays, but it is definitely not an elf.

You never know about the power of marketing, but I still have trouble believing
that even an aggressive campaign by a syrup company will be able to sell
Buddy's new favorite breakfast to the public. Pouring heavy syrup over
spaghetti with tomato sauce is a breakfast that even a toddler would have
trouble liking. This good-spirited, crowd-pleaser of a picture is something
that you will have no trouble loving. Our packed audience certainly did.

ELF runs 1:35. The film is rated PG for "some mild rude humor and language"
and would be acceptable for all ages.

The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, November 7, 2003. In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC and the Century theaters.

Web:

http://www.InternetReviews.com

Email:

Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com

Want free reviews and weekly movie and video recommendations via Email?
Just send me a letter with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.

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Golan and Globus bear corralled 'The Inconceivable Lou Ferrigno' to topline in a cheesy epic that could just helter-skelter be titled Hercules in Outer While. Since a granular time suit would cover Ferrigno's powerful physique from examination, the all-powerful one travels to the universe wearing nothing but his gladiatorial briefs.

A lot of it takes place on the moon, as Zeus and wife and daughter Hera and Athena toy from above with the fate of mortals. It is Hercules' tasks to try to rescue the Princess Cassiopea from the clutches of her evil kidnappers, and given the changing times, the muscleman doesn't have to battle cardboard monsters, but hi-tech mechanical beasts made of metal and which emit deadly laser blasts from their jaws.

Ferrigno is perfectly affable, and physically (if not physiognomally) he more than lives up to his billing. Sybil Danning, Mirella D'Angelo and Ingrid Anderson comprise a fetching trio of femmes.

Produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the 10-hour HBO miniseries cost
$120 million to film, a record for the small screen.

That's double the price tag of ABC's 1988 mega-mini "War and Remembrance,"
minus inflationary adjustments, and at least triple the explosive firepower.
"Band of Brothers" is big and loud.

Also quite different. Unlike its precursors, "Band of Brothers" remains
aloof from the usual cliches of World War II movies.

There's no melodrama at all. In fact, there are hardly any concessions to
plot. No furtive wartime romances or girls they left behind. No friction
between the lippy private from Brooklyn and his hayseed comrade from the deep
South. No tinny platitudes about saving democracy.

No, the "Band of Brothers" thrills come in a stainless-steel setting. You
might actually find yourself missing some of the old hackneyed twists, even as
you scold yourself for it.

"Band of Brothers" casts its heart on the side of brute combat realism and
pays a price in its absence of narrative glue.

The viewer lives and figuratively dies with the men of Easy Company, 506th
Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, as they fight across Europe from D-Day to
beyond VE-Day, yet feels little emotional investment in any of them. Even
after 10 hours, it's hard to tell some of them apart.

We're conditioned to want something to latch onto in the story, a dramatic
handhold. But if there's a character right at the core of "Band of Brothers,"
it's war itself, more hellish than ever.

Easy Company is real. The miniseries is based on historian Stephen
Ambrose's account of a paratroop unit that rode the riptide of combat.

They trained in Georgia, parachuted behind German defenses in the D-Day
invasion, got chewed up in France and Holland, endured horrific conditions at
the Battle of the Bulge near Bastogne, liberated a Nazi concentration camp in
Germany and captured Hitler's mountaintop "Eagle's Nest" at Berchtesgaden.

The unit was rarely far from combat. The same is true of the miniseries,
which was filmed almost entirely at an abandoned airfield in England.

No TV entertainment program has shown combat in such terrifyingly realistic
and lethal terms, or so accurately depicted its frantic chaos.

On the first night, Spielberg and Hanks serve up their TV miniseries
response to the famous first half-hour of "Saving Private Ryan." In place of
the bloody beach landing in Normandy, there's a stunning, computer-enhanced
scene of the unit preparing to jump into France in the teeth of anti-aircraft
fire.

These men would age quickly. You can see why.

Eight directors and nine writers, including Hanks, strung together the
miniseries. The look remains seamless, but a few episodes offer an even more
microscopic squint into the Easy Company microcosm.

Episode Six, "Bastogne," focuses on an Easy Company medic, Eugene Roe
(Shane Taylor), as he scrounges for morphine, scissors and bandages to keep up
with the carnage.

The men are surrounded by Germans, cold, fogged in and short on ammunition
and winter gear. But the famous battle is recounted uniquely through Roe, who
scrambles to save lives while all around him specialize in expending them.

The episode is a splendid diversion into the belly of the beast, and "Band
of Brothers" offers several like it as its spotlight shifts.

The most recognizable name in the cast is David Schwimmer as Easy Company's
first commanding officer, Lt. Herbert Sobel. He's a tough taskmaster in
training, but a befuddled klutz in the field.

Before D-Day, Sobel is mercifully replaced by the most enduring hero of the
miniseries, Lt. Richard Winters (Damian Lewis), the closest that "Band of
Brothers" comes to a leading man.

Winters is a laconic teetotaler who soon proves his competence in action,
leading a D-Day assault on a German artillery unit. Later, away from his men,
Winters struggles

with his own emotions during a weekend furlough to Paris. He rides Metro
trains alone, haunted by his point-blank shooting of a young German soldier he
encountered in Holland.

Winters is the no-frills embodiment of American film heroism, and Lewis
plays him with the tiniest hints of Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda. You'd never
guess it, but it's true: Lewis is an English actor.

Each episode comes with a preface — actual survivors of Easy Company being
interviewed on camera, never having to reach far down to call up vivid
memories from nearly 60 years ago. They're all identified at the end of the
final episode, and Winters is among them.

It should be a powerful moment; instead it may come across as merely
interesting.

"Band of Brothers" is an immense achievement, raising the bar for combat
realism. But to the end, it's hobbled by its noble disinclination to play the
Hollywood game.

Matching the true faces with the actors is a chore. As movie characters,
most of these real soldiers had been ciphers, subservient to the action.

One warning for VCR users. HBO says its 10 episodes are neatly parceled
into 10 hours. But some hours are a little longer than 60 minutes. If you're
taping, allow about 15 minutes of latitude.

This article appeared on page

C - 1

of the San Francisco Chronicle

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Written by

Ted Griffin, based on the 1960 screenplay by Harry Brown & Charles Lederer, which was in turn based on
a story by George Clayton Johnson & Jack Golden Russell


Directed by

Steven Soderbergh


Starring

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts

Running audio commentary by director Soderbergh and writer Griffin

Running audio commentary by Garcia, Pitt and Damon

HBO First Look: The Making of Ocean's Eleven

The Look of the Con — costume design featurette

Theatrical trailers

DVD-ROM: "In or Out? Challenge"

Anamorphic:

Yes.

My Advice:

Rent It.

Danny Ocean (Clooney) is a highly skilled confidence man. The only reason he got caught was because he was off his game.
This was almost certainly due to the fact his wife, Tess (Roberts), had left him. Now that he's out of the joint, he has
a plan to pull an extensive and yes, ludicrous, job. It's an idea to rob three casinos simultaneously. This will involve
assembling a small army (hence the title), pulling some out of retirement, some out of custody, and some out of pretty much
nowhere.

Soderbergh is a helluva fine director. He alternates between "his" films and more marketable outings. With

The Limey

you also get

Out of Sight

. With

Traffic

, you also get

Erin Brockovich

. And it's all at least a
fascinating study in cinema, if not eminently watchable.

Thus, also taking interesting choices, Soderbergh remade the Rat Pack heist flick. A tremendous departure from that
original fest, this new version had pretty much a "got it made" ticket from the word jump. Long and long has passed since
we last saw a boatload of A-list players all get in one project and have a blast. And although the project could have coasted
on the laurels of its helmer and cast, it actually chose to be a lot of fun.

The cast all exude cool. The script is smart and manages to balance the characterization needs of thirteen major
players. The shots are perfectly stylized. It's fun, it's a popcorn movie, and a gourmet brand to boot.

The DVD isn't half bad, either. Front and center are the two commentary tracks. Soderbergh and Griffin spar on theirs,
and it's easy to see how a sharp script could have been (a) delivered and then (b) translated to the screen. Jokes and
insults sporadically appear and are gone again before you really have a clue what was happening. And they manage to actually
impart a little bit of information about the film as well. As for the Damon/Garcia/Pitt track, it's fun. Granted, at times
it turns into a lovefest for their fellow actors and especially Soderbergh, but they do manage to inform as well.

The behind-the-scenes featurette is your standard HBO First Look deal, although stylized to match the film. In that,
it's a touch more intersting than normal featurettes like it, but only a touch. More useful is "The Look of the Con,"
which discusses what went into the wardrobe behind some of the main characters. Pitt's character's clothing fabric, the
fact that Clooney always walks out of jail in a tux–these are the kinds of things that get pointed out. Those of us
without a costume design background will just go, "Oh, I get it." Because we don't have the trained eye, you see.

As for anything else, the

In Or Out?

game on the DVD-ROM portion is moderately amusing–at least it has the
sense to give you different games as you go along–but it can get old relatively quickly nonetheless. And isn't it nice
that the InterActual Player forces you to make it your standard DVD player? What a travesty.

Fans of Soderbergh or Clooney–or hell, any of the ensemble for that matter–would probably want to go ahead and own
this thing. It's a fun movie, and we get those so seldom anymore. The features don't leap off the disc and grab you by
the lapels, but it's okay: the movie is smart enough to compensate. Normal joes will want to rent, but it's at least worth
checking out.

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