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Redbelt

Last weekend, readers of the New York Times sports section might have noticed an ad for Redbelt, David Mamet’s new movie. This isn’t the first time movie marketing has involved hawking a movie to sports fans, but it’s surely a first for famous playwright-turned-filmmaker Mamet.



Speed Racer

At a time when the environmentally and economically suicidal consequences of America’s obsession with automobiles are becoming clear even to the most stubborn freemarketers, with the cost of gasoline on a seemingly unstoppable rise and the near-inevitability of millions of more cars on the roads of India and China promising to make the situation much, much worse—just as it seems that Americans are finally starting to get it through their collective heads that civilization cannot continue on this way—is this really the time for a blockbuster movie that glorifies cars?

What Happens in Vegas

People eat at chain fast-food restaurants because they know exactly what they’re going to get: A cheeseburger from a McDonalds at the Salt Lake City airport tastes exactly like the one from the McDonalds on Ridge Road in Lackawanna and exactly like the one from the McDonalds on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. That’s what kind of a movie What Happens in Vegas is.

The Life Before Her Eyes

Ever since The Crying Game, I’ve been faced with the occasional problem of writing adequately about a film which contains an element of surprise. That is to say, an unexpected element of surprise, as opposed to the oxymoronically expected surprises you get in most horror films.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

In the four years since Super Size Me, his investigation into America’s poor nutritional options hooked on his stunt of eating nothing but McDonalds food for a month, was an Oscar-nominated hit, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock has put his newfound fame into producing documentaries for television. Now he’s back on the big screen with a movie that asks a different question about the world in which we are raising our children. In fact, the impending birth of his first child was the factor that led Spurlock to make Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? Or maybe that’s just what he told his wife as an explanation of why he set off to dangerous regions across the Middle East as her pregnancy advanced.



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