Word: classics
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Brothers isn't up there in the empyrean of classic movies, but it is a solid drama - about a family at war with itself - that handles its combustible elements with care and gets strong, accurate performances from Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman. The release of the film has either perfect or ominous timing, for it opens just after President Obama's announcement that he was sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Brothers, written by David Benioff and directed by Jim Sheridan, is about a soldier sent to that perilous region, with dire results for him, his fellow Marines...
...time to start ramping production back up, but demand hasn't fully returned, so they hesitate to hire. The conundrum: demand in the U.S. is overwhelmingly consumer-driven and people need to have jobs to feel like it's once again safe to spend money. It's a classic chicken-or-egg problem. Direct hiring by the government could, theoretically, sidestep the impasse. The question then becomes whether such a program creates more economic benefit than it does economic inefficiency by having the government dictate job creation. Consider that one criticism of the WPA was that it prevented people from...
...Clearly, Penguin is bullish about Chinese literature - good news if you think, as I do, that the country's growing global profile should be matched by greater awareness of its cultural offerings. But to me the best news of all is the recent publication, as a Penguin Classic, of The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China. It's a work that has nothing to do with introducing an up-and-coming writer, but rather seeks to widen appreciation of the long-dead Lu Xun - the pen name of Zhou Shuren, who succumbed to tuberculosis...
...Sacrifice" and the eponymous tale of Ah-Q (an opportunistic, inept sometime participant in the 1911 Revolution). Together, they give Lu Xun his best shot to date of achieving renown beyond the Chinese world. If it succeeds in this, the book could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published...
When a film’s opening credits are its sole distinctive feature, the movie can’t be all that great. Directly following his masterful cult classic, “Fight Club,” Fincher’s fifth feature was more disappointing than even his ill-fated “Alien 3.” While trailers promised a tense and harrowing thriller, viewers were instead treated to a pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart hyperventilating alongside a whiny Jared Leto with a gun in hand...