Thursday, November 22, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
American Gangster: Great Movie
American Gangster (AG) is a biopic of sorts about Frank Lucas the notorious heroin dealer in NYC in the late 60's early 70's. its been said that at his height Lucas made a million dollars a day in the drug trade. AG was a great movie, it was full of great dialogue and contained plenty of action. You cant condone Lucas' actions he was a drug dealer and he was a criminal. But you cant knock his business sense either making a million dollars a day takes initiative. He bucked the current system of purchasing his supply through middle man and went straight to the source for his heroin. Then he turned around and sold it cheaper than his competition while making more money on it than his competition did.
I cant decide how I feel about the character of Ritchie Roberts portrayed by Russell Crowe. In some ways I feel that the character is underdeveloped and as such it makes me question the amount of screen time that Crowe is given. Alot of Robert's time on screen is spent dealing with his personal life separate from how it affects his chase of Lucas. In many ways the dichotomy of these two characters reminds me of the relationship between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in Heat. In both films you have very strong actors all leading men in their own right but confined to stories where there is only on leading character and possibly not enough meat for both to eat on artistically. In both instances we are treated to large parts of the secondary lead's private life that has nothing to do with the real movie. In the end to bring them together both movies use a scene a diner in Heat and prison conference room in AG to put two strong actors together and let them work. It comes out well in both. Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington are two of the best actors of their generation.
Roberts is a funny copy in the juxtaposition of the rest of the movie. He is blacklisted by his Department because he was honest and turned 100K without taking any. Because of this no one will work with him, but this leads to him being the choice to be the guy to go after Lucas. He is honest but he isn't at least not in other facets of his life. He is about as dishonest as Lucas is honest, and Lucas is a totally bad person he has some good intentions, but some very questionable practices. In the end Lucas was a thief, killer, and a dealer. But his life is an interesting story. And even when you know that Lucas is living the embodiment of evil toward his people and his time period you still find yourself rooting for him in his struggle with dirty cops and the Italian Mafia.
check out more frank lucas @ http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/3649/
I cant decide how I feel about the character of Ritchie Roberts portrayed by Russell Crowe. In some ways I feel that the character is underdeveloped and as such it makes me question the amount of screen time that Crowe is given. Alot of Robert's time on screen is spent dealing with his personal life separate from how it affects his chase of Lucas. In many ways the dichotomy of these two characters reminds me of the relationship between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in Heat. In both films you have very strong actors all leading men in their own right but confined to stories where there is only on leading character and possibly not enough meat for both to eat on artistically. In both instances we are treated to large parts of the secondary lead's private life that has nothing to do with the real movie. In the end to bring them together both movies use a scene a diner in Heat and prison conference room in AG to put two strong actors together and let them work. It comes out well in both. Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington are two of the best actors of their generation.
Roberts is a funny copy in the juxtaposition of the rest of the movie. He is blacklisted by his Department because he was honest and turned 100K without taking any. Because of this no one will work with him, but this leads to him being the choice to be the guy to go after Lucas. He is honest but he isn't at least not in other facets of his life. He is about as dishonest as Lucas is honest, and Lucas is a totally bad person he has some good intentions, but some very questionable practices. In the end Lucas was a thief, killer, and a dealer. But his life is an interesting story. And even when you know that Lucas is living the embodiment of evil toward his people and his time period you still find yourself rooting for him in his struggle with dirty cops and the Italian Mafia.
check out more frank lucas @ http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/3649/
Friday, November 2, 2007
A Saturday in DC
so my boy emilio hits me up a couple saturdays ago and invites me to check out this solar decathalon competition on the lawn in dc.Emilio, his roomie Eliezer, their girlfriends and our boy Clarence headed downtown to see the event. colleges from all over the world come and compete in their ability to design a functional but solar dependent residence and they only have 800 square feet to do it. it was very interesting to see how when you have to scale back how much stuff that we take for granted to find in a residence goes out the window. in this competition everything must be functional and necessary in order to make it into the design. check out the entries here http://www.solardecathlon.org/ you might find something you like.
after the decathlon and scrounging up some food from a street vendor. we decided to check out the national archives. i had never been to the archives but apparently this was the saturday to go because it was packed. 30 minutes after arriving we finally got in. there's some very interesting things on display in the archives. report cards from the presidents. declassifed recordings from former presidents, even a video of the 41st Bush exclaming his dislike for broccoli. i found a few things i didn't know such as President Gerald Ford was offered a contract to play for the Green Bay Packers for $200 a game. Ford turned it down and went to work at Yale. however the highlight of the archives is the display of the Decalaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. it was amazing to see the history of country on paper. it was funny because i had this picture of the display room placed in my mind from watching the movie Natural Treasure. i figured the room would be bright and well lit, maybe with a few windows in the ceiling. no such thing; the room is dark and cold. the documents are displayed as they should be, behind thick uv light protected glass.
when looking at the documents i thought it was interesting that you cant read them anymore. the ink on these writings has faded. someone could decide to tell the world the constitution said something in particular and we couldnt go back to the source documents to validate it. but i guess your cant expect ink from over 200 years ago to last forever. really the only thing you can still read are the signatures, john hancock's is huge, you can understand where the term came from after looking at it. you can make out most of the others if you strain a bit. but go check it out, our country's history on display, its viewing can make for an interesting day.
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