Reviews by Al

It’s pretty clear this movie about the hostage taking and later killing of 11 Jewish athletes and the avenging of their deaths was written from the Western point of view.  Arabs might have saw the athlete killings as justified because of Israel refusal to release 234 Palestinian prisoners; they lost no time killing one of the hostages immediately in an attempt to get Israel to accept the ‘terms’.  Actually, from most any point of view killing anyone in exchange for prisoners seems quite unbalanced, but obviously there’s more background to the conflict than just the hostage taking.  (1 for 1 prisoner exchange would be a fairer, I think people might agree, although one party may refuse because some prisoners are more important than others…  Still, this would be a civilized proposal.)  With the understanding that this is the way Spielberg would present this story, it is quite riveting at points.  There is the mysterious French family trading in information and profiting handsomely from both sides.  The Mossad (Israeli secret service) team succeeds at killing a number of the 11 Palestinians responsible in the athlete killings in an attempt to send a message to the world that Israel would not stand idly while Palestinians delivered their message, but at considerable monetary and human cost.

A forward written by Andrew Tobias lends some credence to the writings of author Joel Greenblatt.

Unsurprisingly I liked this film.  Probably mostly because of Josh Hartnett who as the protagonist gets a lot of screen time and looks exceedingly fine, but I think he actually does a really good job of portraying the pained fiance of a woman whose brother hires him as a photographer.  He doesn’t actually love her, and it shows intermittently.  She is quite oblivious though.  He actually still loves an old flame who left town without a word of explanation two years ago.  Somehow he picks up her trail again by coincidence and he is determined to find her again.  There’s a force, unknown for much of the movie, keeping them apart.

A social climber with unexplained charm to a wealthy family is played by Jonathan  Rhys-Meyers (I’m not a big fan of Mr. Rhys-Meyers).  Despite the underdog quality however I didn’t find sympathy for his predicament as he falls hard for the girlfriend of the son of his ‘host’ family, while juggling the advances of the daughter which come with monetary inducements.  Scarlett Johansson doesn’t quite convince as the sometimes bad, sometimes good girlfriend (a problem with the script also), but she is pretty here as always.

An unusual case where I actually like just about every song on the album.  Yellowcard is kind of like a Taking Back Sunday, but less religious.  Adult alternative rock.  Favorite song might be Waiting Game.

A few good songs on this album.  I liked: Minimal, Numb, I’m with Stupid.

The movie jumps into the lives of a bunch of New York residents.  James Marsden (X-men series) who goes shirtless for a bit in the beginning playing lawyer, Jonathan, is going to get married to a blond photographer Isabel played by Elizabeth Banks.  Not all is well with that relationship though.  Glenn Close plays the full throttle, but prescient photographer’s mother, Diana, who is naturally suspicious about Jonathan.  Well done overall.  This movie was co-produced by the late Ismail Merchant.

I know I’m a bit late, but anyway I finally saw this 3 hour film.  It does seem rather well done.  Ben Kingsley plays wonderfully as Mohatma Gandhi.  But really the real treasure of the movie is the idea of peaceful, but not passive, protest of injustice and violence.  I’m a bit ashamed I didn’t know these bits of history: India and Pakistan’s genesis from a single area controlled by the British, and Gandhi’s hunger strike which apparently averted both a revolutionary war and a civil war.  I wish for Gandhi’s help in Iraq today.