http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blogs-1-1-1-9.html Lou Reed’s recording career has been patchy over the past 30 years. But in the 1960s he led the most important rock band that never sold many records during their time together, the Velvet Underground. Going solo in the ‘70s, he was one of the most unpredictable recording artists of his era. His greatest album may have been Berlin (1973), an exultant and harrowing poetic story record (“concept album” in the parlance of the time) about ]]> Western Europe was a backwater among world cultures in the Middle Ages, except for Spain, then an Islamic kingdom where learning and tolerance flourished. In “When the Moors Ruled in Europe,” British historian-television host Bettany Hughes examines the wonders of a civilization that began as an outpost of the Islamic world but rapidly became a center of world civilization. The documentary, out on DVD, is a well paced and informative]]> The first sound is of pounding hooves and the first sight is of three horsemen hurrying over the crest of a dun colored hill, framed by the wooden gate to a ranch in desolate country. The city marshal and his deputies have come to arrest one of the hired hands for rape and murder, but the landowner, a man called Bragg (Jeremy Irons), stands firm. When the marshal tries to make the arrest Bragg shoots down the horsemen with nary a blink and bare]]> There’s a scene near the beginning of Flash of Genius that neatly and amusingly speaks volumes about its protagonist, Dr. Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear). One night the electrical engineering instructor at a Detroit college is confronted by his sexy wife Phylis (Lauren Graham). She is in a negligee and in the mood. His focus is elsewhere. Kearns excuses himself and goes outside to his car, opens the hood and spends the rest of the night in the int]]> With avian flu and AIDS in the background, the idea of startling new contagions has been in the air among horror writers, literary authors and screenwriters. The novel by Portugese Novel Prize winner Jose Saramago, Blindness, concerns an apparnelty viral epidemic of “the white sickness,” causing victims to see little but squirming shapes in a sea of blinding white. They are rendered virtually sightless. Blindness has been filmed by Brazi]]> 

“What are you doing in that funny looking get-up?” Asking the question is a man wearing a pith helmet, a khaki colonial officer’s uniform, tall leather cavalry boots and a flowing cape. In comparison, the sidekick he’s questioning cuts a modest figure in his fez and loose Arabic robe. The man in the cape and pith helmet, who happens to be the hero of Chandu the Magician (1932), seems utterly in earnest and innocent of iro]]> Spike Lee has been fighting World War II long before the release of his latest film, Miracle at St. Anna. His campaign began with a salvo at Clint Eastwood for excluding black faces from Flags of Our Fathers and perpetuating the assumption that blacks contributed little to the U.S. victory. It was not the movie Eastwood wanted to make and the sniping between the two directors probably served to harden Lee’s resolve. Miracle at St. Anna i]]> John McCain may once have been a straight talker, but the mainstream media has often overlooked the crooked path he took during the 2008 campaign. Political activist Robert Greenwald made an effort to go around the gatekeepers and reach the public with a series of little YouTube clips revealing the candidate's growing deficit in honesty. These warbled videos have been collected along with a running making-of narrative from Greenwald and cohorts a]]> Ever cut off at the intersection by some idiot driver on his cell phone? Annoyed by some jerk babbling his personal business loudly into a cell phone at the supermarket? Then you might share the sentiment manifested in “Mobile.” The recent British television series, out in October on DVD, concerns an elaborate conspiracy to blow up cell phone transmission towers. But as happens in any prolonged campaign of terrorism, people begin to die. ]]> Hunter S. Thompson was considered past his peak when he killed himself in 2005. During the high times of the 1960s and ‘70s, however, Thompson helped revitalize journalism through his audacity, his willingness to use the tactics of fiction in the strategy of finding truth. Filmmaker Alex Gibson’s Gonzo: The Life & Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is an entertaining and revealing look into the life of a late 20th century author import]]> Sentenced to 15 years on charges of being too rich, the former waiter Jan Dite is finally released from prison in Communist Czechoslovakia. Squinting against the bright sunshine of freedom, Dite’s reentry into society suffers a momentary snag when the strap of his backpack catches in the iron gate that slams shut behind him. Caught in the clutches of fate but wriggling his way forward, Dite’s release sets the tone for I Served the Kingof]]> Just in time for Halloween, Glenn Kay’s Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (published by Chicago Review Press) is a chronological account of every zombie picture the author could locate. He found many, beginning with Bela Lugosi’s White Zombie (1932) and running through Will Smith’s I Am Legend (2007). Although Kay uses the word “classic” a little too liberally, a few specimens of the horror subgenre might rise to the level of importance, especial]]> Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was deemed unfilmable when first published, but no less than two movies were adapted from the novel (along with a sad assortment of failed stage productions). Although it was one of the most notorious bestsellers of the 1950s, it’s mostly known nowadays from Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film, which reshaped the prepubescent Lolita into a willing accomplice of Humbert Humbert, an academic with an obsession for very young girl]]> Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were among the fresh new faces of ‘70s Hollywood. But the towering dramatic actors of that now fabled decade never appeared together in a film until the ‘90s and then only once, in Michael Mann’s tense crime drama Heat (1995). In Heat, they presided over parallel plot lines as master criminal and master detective and converged only late in the story. In Righteous Kill, De Niro and Pacino are on the same team and i]]> David Suchet is no ordinary screen actor but a thespian of great ability. In Hollywood he remains an obscure supporting actor in films such as The Bank Job and A Perfect Murder. Elsewhere he is more familiar as the star of the long running British television series “Poirot,” which originally debuted stateside on PBS in the 1980s and has reappeared sporadically ever since on the A&E channel. Twelve of the newer episodes have been released on]]> After winning Oscars with the unrelentingly grim No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers lighten up a little for Burn After Reading. Their new film traverses territory more familiar to the filmmakers. Here, death doesn’t descend in the form of an enigmatic hit man who tosses coins for the lives he encounters. Death just happens. Mordantly humorous but seldom laugh out loud, Burn After Reading is like most of the Coens’ previous movies, sittin]]> The Dark Knight has caught up with Titanic’s record box office ticket sales and is one of the most talked about films in years. It’s the biggest moviegoing phenomenon of 2008, larger even than Sex and the City. Heath Ledger was a rising actor and his role as the Joker in the sequel to the popular Batman Begins would have cinched his stardom had he lived. His death was good publicity for The Dark Knight, yet morbid curiosity alone would n]]> Ian McKellen, one of cinema's grand old men, was once young. This obvious observation was brought home by the DVD release of “Country Matters,” a 1972 British television series starring McKellen as an Edwardian art instructor in an idyllic rural setting. McKellen's character is admittedly a mediocre painter but is an artist at romance. Avid for his female students, he lays a discrete hand on their shoulders during lessons and kisses th]]> Alan Moore is probably bemused, even a bit amused, by the legal problems surrounding next year’s scheduled release of Watchmen, the film based on his 1980s graphic novel. Seems that 20th Century Fox is suing Warner Brothers over who owns which slice of the movie rights. Moore has been largely disdainful of previous efforts by Hollywood to adapt his graphic novels, a remarkable catalog that includes V for Vendetta, The League of Extraor]]> We first met Michael Sheen in his role as Tony Blair in The Queen, a film that leapt from art houses and into Oscar consideration. Sheen reappears as a much less attractive Blair in director Stephen Frears’ companion piece, The Deal. The docudrama (out now on DVD) is billed as a prequel to the movie that peered behind the palace gates at the royal family’s response to Princess Diana’s death. The Deal falls short of its predecessor, in ]]>