"We know that the road to freedom has always been stalked by death." ---HL Staff that went to Rome---


"O"

I have some pretty thick biases about this movie. I have watched with disgust as Hollywood has soullessly raped and pillaged classical literary works, gutting them of all classiness by replacing them with shallow, empty, whorish attempts to capitalize on the teenquake box office potential (re: Save the Last Dance (Romeo and Juliet), 10 Things I Hate about You (Taming of the Shrew), She's All That (Pygmalion), etc.). Also, I played the title character of "Othello" in a stage production two years ago so the play ranks as one of my absolute favorites. With the long delayed "O," a teenage adaptation based on the Shakespearean tragedy of "Othello" that sat on the shelf for two years due to the Columbine and Santana high school shootings, would this movie prove to be yet another trifling bastardization of the literary canon or a marriage of visual and literary storytelling?


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Rush Hour 2

Picking up where the last "Rush" left off, LAPD cop James Carter (Tucker) is on vacation in Hong Kong with the city's Chief Inspector, Lee (Chan). With Lee sneaking in casework during his so-called vacation, things get a lot worse when he's put on the case of a bombing at the U.S. Embassy, making Carter reluctantly assist. Onto the scent of a deadly Hong Kong gang that's mixed in with a shady U.S. businessman, Lee and Carter travel to the United States to figure it out (Carter: "Just follow the rich white man."). Throw in a counterfeiting ring, a hot undercover Secret Service agent (Roselyn Sanchez), and some hijinks in a Las Vegas casino, and the "Rush" is on again.
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Baby Boy

Jody (Tyrese) is a 20 year old mama's boy in the worst way. Unemployed, careless, living with his mother, and a father two times, he flits between his girlfriend/ babymomma Yvette (Taraji P. Henson) and his other babymomma Peanut (Tamara LaSeon Bass). Encroaching on the home front is an OG around-the-way style landscape business owner named Melvin (Rhames), an old school roughneck who makes time with Jody's mother Juanita (underexposed A.J. Johnson). As we watch Jody bounce around from his violently principled homie Sweetpea (Gooding) to starting a fledgling boosted clothing business as well as between his babymommas (and various other random women), the question we want to know is will Baby Boy EVER grow up?
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Captain Corelli's Mandolin

During WWII, a quiet, tiny Greek isle becomes occupied by Italian soldiers placed under Mussolini's orders. Among them is the opera-singing Captain Corelli (Cage), who loves music much more than life or the war, placed in the home of a doctor (John Hurt) and his beautiful, lovelorn daughter Pelagia (Cruz). See, Pelagia's fiancé, the illiterate, impetuous Mandras (Bale), ran off to fight the Germans and Italians, leaving Pelagia behind, heartbroken. Enter Corelli's peaceful, charming, musically inclined self, who begins to woo the comely, intelligent, feisty Pelagia with words from his heart, and tunes from the titular mandolin, against the backdrop of war.

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Rat Race

This movie has affected my life more than y'all will ever know. I'm not even talking about the movie itself but the concept behind it, a movie about an all out mad dash for cash. With its eclectic cast of characters and a truly ensemble cast of ensemble players, "Rat Race" has brought the true sense of the word ensemble comedy back and into the new millennium.

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Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Milo Thatch is a struggling, timid cartographer, stuffed in the boiler room of a DC museum whose board of trustees is content to never again have to hear his jibber-jabber about financing a trip to find the lost city of Atlantis. When wealthy Preston B. Whitmore agrees to finance Milo's trip as a favor to his dead grandfather, it seems like a dream come true. Well, until Milo meets the diverse, yet mercenary ragtag crew - a Howard graduate black doctor, a Latina mechanic, a dirt-digging Frenchman, a dominatrix of a lieutenant, and a chain-smoking, wisecracking communications officer, among others. With Milo as their guide, they set out in search of Atlantis. But when they find it - and Milo the beautiful Princess Kida (Summer) - personalities conflict and the health of the underwater city hangs in the balance.
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The Fast and the Furious

Brian (Walker) is an Aryan looking guy trying to jump into the diverse world of illegal street car racing. His entrée into this world is through Mia (Jordana Brewster), the cute sister of mechanic-by-day, street-car-badass-by-night Dominic. Not only does Dominic lord over the San Fernando Valley street car circuit, but also he has links to the Asian mob and, quite possibly, a trucker hijacking ring. As Brian gets deeper and deeper into this world, he befriends Dominic - and finds his loyalties and moralities compromised by this fast-paced, seductive life - and by the girl, of course.
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Final Fantasy

In the bleak year 2065 where phantomlike aliens roam the earth, humans hole up in energy barrier protected cities while a war wages on for control of the dying planet. Scientist Dr. Aki Ross (Ming-Na), backed by her mentor Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) and haunted by strange, alien dreams, goes out in search of the last three spirits needed for a collection of eight that just might save the struggling life spirit (Gaia) of the planet and expel the alien invaders. Standing in Aki's way is the arrogant General Hein (Woods), who wants to use a giant laser called the Zeus Cannon in a flawed attempt to kill the alien life forms and a deadly secret of her own that brings her closer to an old flame, Capt. Gray Edwards (Baldwin). The race is on for Aki to find the final spirits before Hein gets approval to fire his Zeus Cannon and, possibly, destroy the planet.
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Jurassic Park 3

As usual, Dr. Alan Grant (Neill) is surly and cash strapped, with his paleontology dig set to run out of money in three weeks. When Paul and Amanda Kirby (Macy and Leoni) tempt he and his assistant Billy (Nivola) with funding the dig further for any amount he wants in exchange to be their aerial guide over dinosaur-infested Isla Sorna, Grant jumps at the chance. Of course, the Kirbys have their own secret agenda and land the plane on the island, against the express wishes of Dr. Grant. The dinosaurs come out to play - and they are REALLY pissed this time. People flee. Mayhem ensues. The race is on to get to the coast, signal for help, and get off the island - alive.
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Planet of the Apes

Set in 2029 at the edge of the universe, astronaut Leo Davidson (Wahlberg) leaves the safety of his space station after his recon-trained chimp Pericles gets lost in the midst of a space storm while advance scouting for the humans. When Leo gets sucked into some sort of time warp, he's spat out onto a strange planet where humans are slaves and apes are the law. In this topsy-turvy world, Leo, of course, rebels and escapes slavery, with the other feisty humans rallying around his reluctant leadership. "Human-rights" activist Ari (Bonham Carter), an aristocratic ape herself with leftist tendencies, supports his effort to free the humans from the under the boot of the irrepressibly savage General Thade (Roth), commander of the ape army. Thade will not rest until Leo is dead. The fate of that world is in Leo's hands. Will humanity survive?
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Moulin Rouge

In turn-of-the-20th-century Paris, a wildly idealistic and lovelorn naïf named Christian (McGregor) is recruited as a bohemian revolutionary writer to concoct a show about beauty, freedom, truth, and "above all things, love," called "Spectacular! Spectacular!" Pitching the show to Moulin Rouge huckster Zidler (Jim Broadbent) won't be easy, as Christian and Toulouse Latrec (John Leguizamo, lisping fiercely) need the financing of the Duke (Richard Roxburgh). All the Duke cares about, however, is obtaining the exclusive rights to the ambitious courtesan cancan dancer Satine (Kidman), who wants to be an actress. Once the Duke backs the show, its star, Satine, ends up accidentally falling for its bohemian revolutionary writer. But can their illicit love thrive against the backdrop of staging "Spectacular! Spectacular!" and the Duke's insanely jealous, possessive nature?
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Pootie Tang

"Wah da tah." I could've just made that up but chances are it came straight from Pootie Tang's mouth. Pootie (Crouther) is a lean, relaxed hair, tinted glasses wearing, gibberish speaking, pop superhero. His greatest claim to fame outside of his numerous endorsement deals for children and good causes and the like is his worldwide pop smash hit, a single that has absolutely no words or music at all. Women love him, like the headphone and hot pants wearing, booty shaking, around the way girl Biggie Shorty (Sykes), and brothas all want to be him, since he's such a tough, retro, cool cat. Pootie is one "kick ass artiste." But when Pootie's magical belt is stolen, one that is so quick it deflects bullets, this proves to be his proverbial Kryptonite. Suffering at the hands of an evil conglomerate owner (Robert Vaughn??) and trying to stay away from the (literally) dirty gangster Dirty D (Reg E. Cathey), will Pootie come back to duty?
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Evolution

When dunderheaded firefighter wannabe WayneGray (Scott) is almost torched by a random meteor landing in the Arizonadesert, community college scientists Ira Kane (Duchovny) and Harry Block(Jones) go out to investigate. What they find is a rapidly evolving alienspecies, which covers millions of years of evolution in the space of days. Ofcourse, the military gets involved because that's what they do, spearheaded byice queen CDC scientist Dr. Reed (Moore), knocking Harry and Ira off theproject. But when this alien species starts evolving and reproducing at ratesnot even the army or the scientists can control, the fate of the world as weknow it is at stake.
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Scary Movie 2


Since No.1 sequel, huh? Well, this wouldn't be the first time Hollywood lied to us. Riding the shocking success of the first "Scary Movie," "Scary Movie 2" risks spoofing itself by sequeling a movie about horror movies and their half-baked sequels. Despite jam-packed crowds on the Fourth to see this movie, "Scary 2" is left running behind the bus of the all but dead gross-out genre that has left it in the dust.
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Osmosis Jones

Osmosis Jones (Rock) is a headstrong white blood cell cop inside the City of Frank, the body of a guy named Frank (Murray). As we see in live action, Frank is a widower with a little girl, a guy so sad he is ostensibly eating himself to death. With his absurdly gross eating habits, Frank catches a virus, that we see on the animated inside of his body is called Thrax (Fishburne): "Careful. I'm contagious." Thrax sets about a sneak attack on Frank's immune system while the City of Frank's mayor (William Shatner) is distracted by running for re-election. The only ones onto Thrax's plan for total immunodeficiency are Osmosis and his outsider cop specialist, a cherry flavored, 12 hour time released cold tablet from the University of Chicago named Drix(enol). Together they try to fight off Thrax before his evil plan to kill Frank comes to fruition.

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Glitter

Just the fact that I saw this movie six days ago and am just now "inspired" to write a review should tell you all you need to know. Buckle up…

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