Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

September 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 51

Total Comments: 37

Full Archive

Advertisements

Ali / Fresh Prince Eats the Soul / USA / 2001

OK, so Will Smith is not that bad as Ali — though he is bad and is far too pencil-necked for the role — but Michael Mann’s biopic of the G.O.A.T. is extremely disappointing. The biopic genre usually yields meager specimens, confined to mimicry, fetishism, and gossip, and Mann’s film is no exception, allowing Smith to karaoke Cassius Clay and paving the way for the truly awful Ray. The worst of this film is that the only really interesting parts — the fights, the TV ops — are far better watched in their original form. Mann infuses them with his own style, which is no doubt interesting, but he adds little else to material that can be viewed on ESPN2 nearly every night of the week. A totally perfunctory pantomime of When We Were Kings and the dressing-up of Jon Voight in a Howard Cosell outfit are only the silliest ideas this movie executes, but there are many more. And what you won’t find in rerun boxing matches on late-night cable isn’t especially notable, comprising mostly warmed over dramatic set-pieces in which Ali argues with one of his many wives or puts his foot down about something.

Personally, I’d rather watch the Diff’rent Strokes docudrama again.

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Columbia TriStar DVD
13 Sep 2006 12:13 PM | Submit Comment

Submit Comment

Please note that your email address will never be displayed on this page.

HTML is enabled; line breaks (<br />) and paragraphs (<p>) are automatically converted. Apostrophes, ellipses, em- and en-dashes, and quotes are also automatically formatted.

Recent Updates