I have to say I enjoyed the movie. I'm glad Todd Phillips didn't try to do this one straight up. Ben Stiller was an inspired choice for Starsky, and Owen Wilson offered a pleasant twist to Hutch. I hoped for more from Snoop as Huggy Bear, but he had his moment on the links. The movie struggled at times trying to squeeze humor out of the situations, but in the end it came together.

Phillips borrowed liberally from the late 60's and early 70's, even tipping his hat to "Easy Rider." Vince Vaughn was convincing as the drug dealer, Reese Feldman. Carmen Electra made a fetching Bay City cheerleader. But it was kind of sad to see David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser looking so old. Hard to believe it was that long ago that they were tearing up the streets of LA in their red Gran Torino, which once again was the star of the show. Don't expect too much from this movie, just go along for the ride.

Michael Moore is very effective at mixing polemics with facts, but in the process he often contradicts himself. While this movie is ostensibly about the Columbine shootings, it evolves into an attack against the weapons manufacturing industry, K-Mart and the National Rifle Association, as those most responsible for the widespread proliferation of firearms and ammunition in America. But, as Moore points out, Canada has easy access to many of the same weapons, yet does not have such a violent culture, noting that less than 200 persons are killed by firearms each year, as opposed to 11,000 in America. So, it would seem the old adage, "guns don't kill people, people kill people," would aptly apply to this movie.

The violent nature of Americans is one that has befuddled sociologists and psychologists for decades. As Moore points out, American history is no more violent than is German, French or British history, yet these countries have a much lower murder rate than the US. Moore gets nearer his target when he illustrates that the "fear factor" seems to be the underlying factor, with commercial and political interests using it to get Americans to buy into the gun and security industry that has become such a pervasive part of our society. He contrasts this with Canada, where even in Windsor, across the river from Detroit, many Canadians don't lock their doors at night. For whatever reason, Americans seem to have had it inculcated into their heads that someone is out there to get them and that they better have a deadbolt lock and a gun on their bedside table.

Eventually, he circled back to the shootings at Columbine, even showing the eerie sequence of events on school cameras. The kids who shot up the school were classic loners, who used guns to vent their frustration on the school, weeks before graduation. What galled Moore and most parents of the school kids at Columbine was that Charleton Heston pitched up in Denver within a week to promote the NRA. He did the same in Flint following the tragic shooting of a 6-year girl by a 6 year-old boy. While Moore never gets behind the reasons, he does corner Heston for an interview at film's end.

But, it is his assault on K-Mart that yields the best rewards. He showed up at the national center with two of the boys who survived the shootings and demanded that K-Mart stop its sale of 9 mm bullets, which were used in the Columbine shootings. Much to his surprise and that of the media that had gathered to film the standoff, K-Mart agreed not only to stop selling 9 mm bullets but to phase out the sale of all ammunition in 90 days. Moore showed once again that you can stand up to the big boys and fight for what is right and win.

Unfortunately, his polemical stance often clouds this work as he vents his frustration with Clinton and Bush for not dealing with the issue of gun control like he thinks they should. He used Kosovo to highlight the indifference Moore perceived, by noting that a major bombing campaign occured the same day as the Columbine shootings.

I'm glad to see this movie has finally made it on DVD and VHS in the States. It took a long time to do so. Lars von Trier follows up Dancer in the Dark, with an even darker view of small town life in America. In this case, we find a town quite literally at the end of the road, buried in a hollow somewhere in West Virginia, where the denizens are reduced to having to pick up the scraps left behind by others and live out a marginal existence. But, in its midst there is a dreamer, Tom, who at first appears to be the moral bellwether of the community. He tries to convince the community to take in a fugitive, evocatively played by Nicole Kidman, and finds that he has to make certain concessions in order to do so.

This film unfolds on stage in a highly theatrical telling, lending to the story the strong sense of a parable. Von Trier has assembled an impressive cast including old favorites Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara. The story builds slowly, with some fascinating twists and turns before reaching its shattering climax. It reminded me a lot of Shirley Jackson's classic story, The Lottery, but seems to owe more to the small town vision of Sinclair Lewis and Thornton Wilder.

I suppose some will be turned off by von Trier's disturbing view of small town life, but this film is masterfully handled, and shows what an accomplished director he is, drawing the most from his actors, in particular Nicole Kidman.

Steinbeck took his turn at the Cain and Abel story, turning it into a towering epic of the westward journey of Americans to the promised land of California. The book is richly detailed, and certainly Steinbeck's most ambitious effort, but ultimately fails to deliver on its central theme. The book is a continuous battle between opposing forces, beginning with the Civil War and ending with land development and the railroad system in California. Caught in the middle of this sprawling epic is a pair of brothers, who find themselves living out an eternal grudge match. The supporting characters are the most interesting in this novel, such as the Chinese cook who becomes so involved in the story of Cain and Abel that he pursues the topic with his elders in San Francisco's China Town, and even searches out a direct Hebrew translation to resolve the meaning of the parable. He finds that the intended word was "will" and not "shall" overcome sin, thereby reaffirming man's free will. But, for the most part this is a heavy handed novel, falling short of Steinbeck's better novels, "In Dubious Battle" and "The Winter of Our Discontent."

Alan Paton certainly had his heart in the right place but couldn't disguise his paternalistic feelings of the plight of the native South African, bringing down what was otherwise a good novel. While Paton recognized the vast injustices being committed in his nation, he failed to recognize the ability of the African to address these concerns. Instead, he created dramatic contrasts between the rural countryside and the City of Gold, Johannesburg, which drew these rural natives into its teeming midst, only to find pain and heartache. In this case it is a father looking for his son, Absalom, only to find that his son has killed a white man. The book resonates with Biblical allusions, taking on the form of a parable, but Paton did not explore the complexities of the situations he created too deeply. He used them more for effect. This is what is most disconcerting about the novel, as it seemed aimed more at a liberal white reader, forcing him to identify with one of his own in the victim he created in Arthur Jarvis.

While Paton struggled admirably to get into the mind of Stephen Kumalo, the berieved father of the son who was an accomplice in the murder of Jarvis, Kumalo is forced to turn to a benevolent white lawyer to represent his son in court. This relationship reinforced Paton view that utimately it was the white man who would save the black man by attacking his own system of government. While this served as an indictment, of sorts, against the apartheid system, it had a hollow ring to it, not taking into account the vast number of protests and other forms of non-violent demonstrations Black, Coloured and Indian South Africans held in defiance of apartheid laws. Instead, Paton reduced apartheid South African to the most simplistic of terms, unable, it seemed, the understand, or at least come to terms with, the number of gradients in the system.

Still, it is a moving novel, especially when Paton deals with what he understands most, the anguish of the conscientious white man in reconciling himself with a corrupt system of government. This is seen mostly through James Jarvis, whose son was murdered by Stephen Kumalo's son. One gets the sense that Paton put a lot of himself into Jarvis.

Who would have thought this novel would soar to the top of the amazon charts? Certainly not the translators, Pevear and Volokhonsky, who were shocked to hear their edition had been selected for Oprah's Book Club. It is great boon for them and the novel as well, which might be regarded as the godmother of the modern romance novel. Tolstoy weaves a magic web, bringing together dysfunctional aristocratic families in perhaps the most memorable Russian novel.

This translation brings the story to life for the non-Russian speaker. Pevear and Volokhonsky have made a habit out of translating Russian novels, from Gogol to Dostoevsky, and now are even tackling Tolstoy's epic work, War and Peace. The language is modern yet true to the Russian original, thanks in large part to Ms. Volokhonsky who is a native Russian speaker.

The story itself has been told so many times before that it doesn't need repeating. But for those who would like a little more insight into the novel, I would suggest reading Nabokov's chapter on Anna Karenina in his Lectures on Russian Literature, as he provides many valuable references over and above those provided by Pevear and Volokhonsky.

Sofia Coppola brings the book magically to life in a thoroughly engaging movie. Coppola not only connects with the tragic Lisbon girls but with the 70's as well, giving the movie a sumptuous feel like the songs of "Heart," whose "Magic Man" provides the perfect intro for Trip Fontaine. Even the cinematography recalls that time. To her credit, she doesn't try to unravel the mystery that surrounds these girls' suicides, leaving the viewer to sort out the details as the four teenage boys try to do so.

I couldn't help but think that Eugenides and Coppola both drew from "Picnic at Hanging Rock." The book had an odd Victorian feel to it, given its setting in the 70's, and Coppola seemed to take the same loving approach to her characters. I thought she handled the cloistered lives of the Lisbon girls very well. James Woods and Kathleen Turner are almost unrecognizable as their parents, whose fundamental views are sharply at odds with the free-spirited time, which the girls so much want to take part in. Coppola treated the eventful Homecoming dance very well and the tragic events which follow. I especially liked the way she handled Trip, dramatically presenting him but not fawning over him as Eugenides did in the novel.

This was a very impressive debut for Sofia Coppola and she followed it up well in "Lost in Translation." She has a remarkable sense of her characters and setting, due to an especially fine eye for detail.

This book will help you to better understand Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which have remarkably different personalities, although often collectively referred to as the Baltics. The countries are treated separately, as they deserve to be, illustrating their individual ambitions, which are often at odds to each other.

I was very impressed with Thomas Lane's scholarly but easily accessible account of Lithuania. In it he gives one of the most balanced appraisals of the country which I've read, taking it up to 1997 with the election of Valdas Adamkus. He charts Lithuania from its post WWI independence to its post Soviet independence, noting its tremendous resiliency in the face of two totalitarian regimes -- the Soviet Union and Germany. The country had a difficult time carving out its niche in the 1920's, battling Poland as well in staking out its independence, only to lose Vilnius to Poland's overextending claims. Lane gives special attention to this inter-war period, as it served as the inspiration for Lithuania's post-Soviet independence in 1991.

He recounts Lithuania's uneasy relationship with Germany and its role in the Holocaust, but is very careful in assessing blame. Lithuania quite literally found itself between a rock and a hard place, falling victim to the Soviet Union in the end. Lane provides a detailed study of the Soviet era and the impact it had on Lithuania's agrarian economy. Through this period, Lithuania still managed to retain its identity despite the prevailing Soviet influence.

Lane covers the key events of the 80's which led to independence, and the difficulties Lithuania faced in the 90's as it tried to distance itself from Moscow. He provides an excellent appraisal of the various political parties and the affect the rural vote still has on the outcome of the elections. Although Lithuania was still struggling to form a market economy by the time Lane concludes his account in the late 90's, the country has since enjoyed an economic boom, with the highest growth rate in Eastern Europe.

There is also a fine appraisal of Lithuania's current foreign policy and its ability to form key European alliances in the 90's, which it had been unable to do in the 20's. It no longer has a heavy reliance on Russia, having become an integral part of the European economy.

It is a riveting film, captures the energy and vitality of Rio's mean streets, while offering some very compelling portraits of the young hoods that came to rule them in the 70's. I does seem to have borrowed from "Goodfellas" in its narrative approach, but there is a much more kinetic quality to this movie, reminiscent of Tarantino movies, which Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund no doubt drew from in piecing together this kaliedoscopic image of the infamous "City of God." I suppose this may be one reason this film found its mark with international audiences. But, as powerful as this movie is, you don't really don't get much beyond the images of a city riddled with corruption, and the generation of street kids that grew up in this violent atmosphere. Appropriately, the directors took the viewpoint of young Brazilian photographer who had grown up in this underworld and chose to record what he saw on film. The film also gains much from the candid performance of kids from the region, similar to Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay.

Dark, brooding but ultimately not very satisfying movie, showing the underbelly of post-Soviet Russia. Brodov became the bad boy of Russian cinema for his stone-faced portrayal of Danila, a young hood, schooled by his older brother, Viktor. Balabonov revels in the violence of mob-ruled St. Petersburg, with plenty of footage of decayed city streets and the ruthless criminal world that had formed in the once great capital on the West Bank. But, don't expect very much irony here. The movie is underscored by an unremitting techno-music soundtrack that became painfully unbearable by movie's end. Although, the movie was heralded as one of the first "realistic" portrayals of post-Soviet Russia, it seems to owe more to "gangsta rap" than it does the mean streets of Russia.