items tagged with Josh Hartnett

BLACK HAWK DOWN

It has been widely reported that Ridley Scott’s war drama Black Hawk Down, originally due later this year, had its release bumped up to qualify for year-end awards consideration and, in theory, serve as a balm for a country forever damaged by the tragic events of September 11. There’s no reason to refute this, and there might even be a kind of self-serving nobility in Columbia Studios’ decision, yet the film in question is a technically impressive atrocity, one that’s perhaps even more heinous in light of last fall’s terrorist attacks. Although based on true events and Mark Bowden’s well-regarded book, Black Hawk Down is jingoistic, dramatically inert, and sometimes shockingly racist; expect nominations and awards to follow.

O

We’ve had so many reinterpretations of Shakespeare’s classics in recent years, and so many that have been surprisingly fine (I’m thinking of 10 Things I Hate About You, the Ethan Hawke Hamlet, and the genre’s standard-bearer, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet), that you’re inclined to give O, which sets Othello in the world of high-school basketball, the benefit of the doubt.

MOULIN ROUGE

I loved Baz Luhrmann’s musical Moulin Rouge, but what I adore even more than the film itself are works like it – artistically divisive movies that give you no choice but to love or hate them.