American Gangster

Director Ridley Scott spins this yarn concerning a Harlem drug kingpin (Denzel Washington) who smuggles heroin into the country by hiding it in the bodies of U.S. soldiers killed during battle in Vietnam. There was a time when no one noticed reserved driver Frank Lucas (Washington), but when the ...more

The Oscar nomination process really doesn't make any sense. Often, it seems like the nominees for best picture are partitioned by some strange content meter. Take this year, for example, each best picture nominee comfortably fits into certain genre and demographic boundaries. Atonement is your classic love-lost period piece with the requisite ornate costumes and big sets, while Michael Clayton is the superstar-fueled moral examination of corporate corruption. Cute and indie come in the form of ...more

The difference between early Ridley Scott, like The Duellists and Alien and late-period Ridley Scott, like Black Rain and Hannibal, is the difference between "stylish" and "slick." In the former, the look of a film -- the photography, the art direction, the costuming -- is as much the subject of the film as whatever the story happens to be. In the latter, all the emphasis on surface things only underscores the fact that there is nothing going on at the heart of the films. American Gangster is a ...more