Solitary Man & The Karate Kid
The Solitary Man
Solitary Man (2009)
***1/2
Millennium Films
Comedy/Drama
Running Time: 90 minutes
Director: Brian Koppelman and David Levien
Michael Douglas as graying old Ben Kalmen is neither villain nor hero in “Solitary Man,” Mr. Kalmen in his heyday was a sparkling car dealer for New York”'s Honest Car Dealership. He”'s saliently flawed in the morality department by cheating on his wife Nancy (Susan Sarandon) and disappointed his daughter Susan (Jenna Fischer) too many times to count.
Interestingly enough, Ben”'s not solitary by choice but because of his breaking trust with the ones he loves. His new girlfriend Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker) asks him to accompany her college-bound daughter Allyson (Imogen Poots) to a college interview at his alma mater. He”'s reluctant to go but he goes anyway. Later (as he has done in the past) he makes more injudicious choices.
Michael Douglas is one of those actors who can look like he”'s in crisis or about to get out of one. “Solitary Man” is no “Fatal Attraction” (1987) nor is it “American President” (1995) which Michael Douglas also starred in. Douglas, like Robert DeNiro in “everybody”'s Fine”, has alienated himself from familial circles in sated conclusion: everybody”'s dysfunctional.
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Love the Midtown Greenway?
Take The Greenway Challenge!
By Lauren Fulner, Community Organizer, Midtown Greenway Coalition
The Twin Cities community will be taking over the Greenway this September, and we want you to join in the celebration! Riders in the first annual bike-a-thon on the Midtown Greenway on September 25, 2010 will be delighted by live music, colorful community art, and delicious snacks along all 5.5 miles of the Greenway trail.
We”'d love for you and your friends to participate; cyclists commit to ride 44 miles in the Greenway on event day and secure at minimum of $250 in personal pledges beforehand. Fantastic prizes await the fundraising fanatics””the top pledge-getter wins airfare for two and a week at a chateau built in an old winery in the bike-friendly Loire Valley of France. This grand prize is being donated by Bob Corrick and Beth Parkhill. Other prizes will be given away via raffle open to all bikers in the Challenge, and for best costume and best decorated bike. The Midtown Greenway Coalition invites trail users to sign up months early so that the pledge raising is a cinch, and will be hosting Pledge-Raising How-To parties throughout the summer.
Cyclists have all afternoon to complete their ride, and can begin as early as 11:00 a.m.,… Read the rest “Love the Midtown Greenway?”
Bow to Rwanda
by Peter Molenaar
At the corner of 31st Street and 16th Avenue exists a modest reddish brown brick structure ”“- home to United Methodist Walker Community Church. For decades, the Peace and Justice Community has used this facility for planning meetings and public forums. It is a proud church.
About early April of this year, the pews were occupied by supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal, political prisoner wrongly convicted of murder. An exposition of developments in Mumia”'s case was delivered by a world famous professor of law. Shortly thereafter, Peter Erlinder would find himself imprisoned in far-away Rwanda.
Peter”'s initial call to Africa had been issued in the year 2003 by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He was to lead a defense team assigned to persons charged with perpetrating the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Please google “Rwanda genocide” and follow the Wikepedia links.
No doubt, the anti-Tutsi genocide delivered by Hutu forces is near the top of the list of 20th century horrors. Perhaps one million people were exterminated in 100 days. That would be 10,000 every day, 400 every hour. The machete was the weapon of convenience.
However, the genocide occurred in the context of a civil-war with roots in the age-old humiliation of the Hutu under Tutsi domination.… Read the rest “Bow to Rwanda”