Word: jamalã
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...young wife married to a fat old gangster, and Pinto’s performance as a girl trying to escape a sterile, abusive life is riveting.After meeting at the age of six, Latika and Jamal lose their parents, flee maniacal villains, and are separated by gangsters, industry, and even Jamal??s brother. They are a couple destined to be together and their love realizes the theme of destiny underlying “Slumdog Millionaire.” A title card that appears at the beginning and end of the movie asks in “Who Wants...
...what of it? Surely we can forgive the professor’s preference for working on projects like cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal??s prison meditations (1997’s Death Blossoms). After all, Cornel West is a genius—“one of the most preeminent minds of our time,” according to cornelwest.com, with a “deep grasp of a multitude of subject matter.” True, his writings, like those of any great man, occasionally inspire carping from West’s political enemies (jealous fellow professors...
...multiethnic Bronx school to a prestigious Manhattan academy for snotty rich kids. Of course, this new school embraces the worst tendencies of the privileged class; appearance over substance is their collective lifestyle. Rich treats this view with uncomfortable unsubtlety, at one point even permitting a basketball teammate of Jamal??s to sneer at him, “You may think we’re the same, but we’re not.” Van Sant follows suit, photographing a faculty-student function through a thick, sickly pale green cloud; his intent to demonize the people within...
It’s not too surprising, then, that Jamal must prove himself, on his own terms, in this hostile environment. F. Murray Abraham’s Professor Crawford provides Jamal with a suitably flat and pompous foil. Suspicious that Jamal??s talent for writing is illegitimate—“He’s a basketball player. From the Bronx”—Crawford endeavors to have him expelled. As Crawford’s role becomes prominent late in the film, Abraham dutifully slogs through a series of embarrassing scenes, trying to maintain some...
...credit, Brown remains a pleasingly assertive presence throughout, keeping Jamal??s outward development reined in with a quiet, natural skill that eludes his Oscar-winning counterparts. Van Sant shows proficiency in depicting the comfortable, expressive relationships between Jamal and his family and friends; there is not a needless look or gesture to be found in this handful of scenes...
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