SIX ROUNDS is an exquisitely realized inner monologue. A perfect distillation of character and mood expressed in silence and in shouts; of emotion visualized through quick cuts and slow motion into a tone poem of stark eloquence with nary a flaw in its running time. Told is six episodes, it explores the aftermath of the… Read More »
JASON BOURNE
I’m put in mind of tea leaves. Good quality tea leaves that have rendered such a wonderful cup of tea that you wonder if maybe, just maybe, there’s enough of their essential, unique quality left to take one more infusion to make a cup as good as that first one. And so it is with… Read More »
T-REX — Sue Jaye Johnson Interview
Sue Jaye Johnson was photographing female boxers when she met Claressa Shields, the toughest teenager in America, It was 2011, and Johnson realized that one of the women in front of her camera would undoubtedly be competing in the 2012 Olympics, the first Olympics to include female boxing. When I interviewed her on May 4,… Read More »
Bill Siegel Recounts THE TRIALS OF MUHAMMAD ALI
When I spoke to Bill Siegel on September 19, 2013, it was the day that Bradley Manning, the soldier who had leaked classified documents to Wikileaks, had announced a change of name to Chelsea Manning, an announcement that, for some, was as newsworthy as the actions that had led to her arrest and conviction. It… Read More »
CREED
In many ways, CREED is a formula film, but one done with so much palpable affection and respect on the part of director and co-writer Ryan Coogler for its inspiration, ROCKY, that it’s impossible to not be swept along by it. Expanding that franchise’s universe, he takes it into the next generation by giving Rocky’s… Read More »
AGAINST THE ROPES
The story of how Jackie Kallen made it as a manager in the testosterone-driven boxing game is a saga worthy of the sort of treatment accorded NORMA RAE or even Erin Brockovitch. Alas, AGAINST THE ROPES does not measure up to either of those films, though leading lady Meg Ryan as Kallen does turn in… Read More »