Word: realisms
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...Records, Eminem's success is vital to the future of the label. And as a white rapper, with the discredited image of Vanilla Ice still looming in the background, he very much needs to score points in the credibility column. So forging beyond the familiar drive-bys of gangsta realism, Eminem mixes comedy and mayhem into jarring scenarios that are made-to-order for jaded young record buyers. There's one catch: next time around fans will expect something even more outrageous, or Eminem will be yesterday's news...
Closer is such a shrewd piece of contempo-realism that its shortcomings as drama might be overlooked. Marber's tactic of eliding large chunks of time--people meet; in the next scene they've been living together for months--stresses the impersonal power of sex but robs the characters of human dimension. The cybersex scene is clever but seems entirely detachable from the rest of the play. Like a skilled hooker, Closer is satisfying mainly in the moment; as a lasting experience, it leaves something to be desired...
...wild romp through dangerous and exciting places, the text subtly takes on the feeling of each different country. When Keelin wanders through the Tokyo night life the descriptions take on a hard, bright, almost neon like quality. As she sweats through sickness in Central America a fuzzy magic-realism pervades. New York and Las Vegas become the barren, American suburban talk-show circuit. Like the text, Keelin is subtly changed by each new location, making a journey that began as a quest for someone else her own. Even as she moves towards real independence, though, Keelin is snared...
...While there is much hype about the realism of recent war movies like Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line, neither is so chilling or disturbing as Kubrick's Vietnam War epic Full Metal Jacket. When it came out it was touted as the greatest war movie ever made, and it seems that title still stands, recent contributions to the genre not withstanding...
...taboos in Lolita or individual and societal violence in A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick used his films to examine the unspoken problems in our modern world, to step back and look honestly at the issues no one wanted to confront in the open. We'll look for the same fierce realism in Eyes Wide Shut, his last movie, due in July and starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (see clip below). In a way, Kubrick was the most moral of filmmakers because he was not afraid to be called immoral, not afraid to tred where audiences didn't think they wanted...