The New Republic

Ancient Greek Athletics By Stephen G. Miller (Yale University Press, 288 pp., $35) Click here to purchase the book. READ MORE >>

Well, at least we find out how it ends. After two installments and four hours of running time, Kill Bill finally reveals whether it will fulfill the promise of its title. Now we can all move on. READ MORE >>

I don't like to think of myself as the kind of person who would open a column with a reference to a Billy Joel song. But this week, while ruminating on the often-inverse relationship between quality and longevity, I fleetingly considered it. I don't mind saying it scared me a little. READ MORE >>

For anyone who found Spider-Man 2 an overwrought retread--there must be some of you out there; I can't be the only one--the video release of Hellboy this week may offer some consolation. An eclectic and fiercely entertaining blend of X-Men, Men in Black, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Hellboy, like the first Spider-Man, has the  infectious zest of a movie made by enthusiasts not yet worried about their place in box-office history. READ MORE >>

<?xml:namespace prefix = dsl />A woman and a man sit on a moonlit beach. She's a mobster's girlfriend, who shot him and absconded with $40,000. He's the private eye sent to bring her back. He's found her here, in Acapulco, and fallen for her. They kiss, and she pleads with him not to take her back: "I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know anything except how much I hated him. But I didn't take anything." She moves closer: "Don't you believe me?" "Baby," he responds, plummeting into another kiss, "I don't care." READ MORE >>

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The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations By James Surowiecki (Doubleday, 296 pp., $24.95) READ MORE >>

A few minutes into City of God, the narrator offers (in English-subtitled Portuguese) a pointed description of the sprawling slum outside Rio de Janeiro that gives the film its name: "There was no electricity, paved streets, or transportation. But for the rich and powerful our problems didn't matter." This introduction could easily have marked the beginning of a filmic diatribe about the plight of the poor in Brazil, an earnest work intended to inform but not entertain. Instead it marks the beginning of a glorious exercise in cinematic style. READ MORE >>

It's hard to believe, but Mystic River is Clint Eastwood's twenty-fourth feature film as a director. Since his debut behind the camera (he was also in front of it) in Play Misty For Me in 1971, he has directed more movies than either Martin Scorcese or Steven Spielberg. Some are memorable (Unforgiven), some are awful (Absolute Power), and at least one is equal parts each (A Perfect World; if you've seen it, you know which part is which). Mystic River is his most complex and assured effort to date, a near-classic that falters due to an accretion of many READ MORE >>

Last week MGM released a "special edition" extended version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Sergio Leone's classic spaghetti western from 1966. The concluding chapter of the "Dollars trilogy" (following on the heels of Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More), it involves the hunt by three ruthless men (Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef) for a hidden cache of gold coins in Civil War era Texas. READ MORE >>