I find it difficult to evaluate the movie American Gangster without some kind of compare and contrast to 2001′s Blow, which I also felt compelled to say a few words about.

Both are period films about drug smugglers, considered by some to be innovators during their time. Both are based on real-life stories. Both sport top-notch actors in some of the worst outfits ever retro-designed from a 1970′s JCPenny catalog.

Yet, one of these movies gets the highest rating I’ve ever issued for a film on this site, and the other gets the lowest.

And I think it all has to do with perspective. Where Blow failed at providing anything but a tunnel vision portrayal of a sophomoric exploiter-cum-big-time-player, American Gangster succeeds at telling an epic rise-and-fall story, all the while examining each side with intelligence–from the hooked mothers overdosing in front of their children, to the crooked cops profiting off of prohibition’s forced demand.

This movie bleeds perspective at just about every turn.

It’s a testament to director Ridley Scott’s experience that proper restraint was used in telling gangster Frank Lucas‘s unique story. After reading The Return of Superfly, a 2001 interview with the ex-con, which the movie was largely based upon, it’s apparent that more could have been told to provide Frank’s character with sympathetic overtones. Instead, the filmmakers pinpoint their focus towards an unrelenting two-sided coin portrayed on one side by Denzel Washington as Frank, and Russel Crowe as Detective Richie Roberts.

It’s a cat and mouse story between two characters representing good and evil, but as obvious as this is, both possess qualities that break down the polarization between them. While bad guy Lucas can be at times charming and sincere, Detective Richie is hardly irreproachable in private. He regularly womanizes and struggles with being a father.

The ethical rift between them becomes even more tense as details of their social status are compared, making the most pivotal scene in the movie all the more poetic. Set against the backdrop of a historic boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, a foreshadowing is cleverly suggested as the stakes at each side grow higher and higher.

Two sides will clash. But only one will win.

Power. Corruption. Greed. Class. Race. So much is explored and executed so flawlessly that I think Ridley Scott may have one of the best movies of his career on his hands.

As for that other movie, it just goes to show that anyone can hustle an audience with a real-life story using a few cheap dramatic devices. But only the truly great can make a story as gripping and thought provoking as American Gangster.

Now that I think about it, there was this guy in my neighborhood growing up who I think must have been training for the military or something. Anyway, I’d see him jogging down a steep hill, which was in full sight of my bedroom window. Sensing that he’d need a bit of motivation on the way back up, I made a regular practice of racing to the speakers connected to my hand-me-down stereo system, placing them into my open window, and blasting The Eye of the Tiger with as much force as 1982′s vinyl technology could muster. Then, as he made his way past my house, I’d whip up as deeply as a could with my pre-pubescent voice a heart-fealt, “Yo, Rock!”

Even then, at the age of eight, I knew this bit of ridiculous theater was really for myself and not so much for the benefit of my strange neighbor, whose real name by the way was definitely not Rocky. I don’t think I even knew what his real name was, or if he had any Italian in his blood, or any interest in boxing, but he looked close enough in size and stature to be somebody I could look up to. To me, watching him jog everyday, he was a man with a vision. And he had a plan to accomplish that vision. He was somebody who accepted that it took a lot of hard work to accomplish whatever goal was in his head–be it joining the Marines, winning the heart of some girlfriend, or intentionally making the neighborhood aware that an eight year old boy has absolutely no concept of self-restraint or natural humility.

It may sound corny, but the capture and realization of seemingly unattainable goals is exactly what the character of Rocky Balboa has always embodied for me–a potential to accomplish one’s dreams through nothing other than pure self-determination and hard work. That’s the formula that made Rocky successful the first time around. And that’s the formula that makes it successful for this, the sixth and final time.

And I think I’ll just leave it at that. Rather than get into every detail of what I did and didn’t like about Rocky Balboa, which I honestly believe is every bit as effective as the first one, I’ll simply relay what one of my more skeptical friends had to say to me as we walked out of the theater.

“Wow, that was really good. I didn’t realize I needed that.”

“What’s that? Closure?”

“Yeah. You hit it. Closure.”

Guess what. When an iconic character like Rocky Balboa taps into the human condition of fighting for our dreams and makes us believe in the seemingly impossible–when he decides to leave the ring for good, we all need a little closure.

See ya, Rock.

Also Related:

• The Dobleman – True story. When I went to see Rocky Balboa, I was listening to an interview with the guitarist from Kasabian. The moment I pulled into the theater parking lot, he started an acoustic version of this song by saying, “This one’s for Rocky Balboa.” Still can’t figure it out, though.
• Rocky: The Musical – It came to me in a dream one night. Also a true story.

Midnight Cowboy is the movie starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. It’s the one with the famous scene of Hoffman’s character slapping a car and yelling, “I’m walkin’ here!” And who could forget the theme song, Everybody’s Talkin, (I say that somewhat confidently because I don’t think I’ve ever seen the movie, but I know the theme song) which incidently has been covered by everyone from Madeleine Peyroux to Leonard Nimoy

Urban Cowboy is the one with John Travolta. In it, he rides an electric bull and talks to Deborah Winger with a really bad southern accent, “Sissy!”

Drugstore Cowboy is the one with Matt Dillon as a junky. It was directed by Gus Van Sant and shouldn’t be confused with Rumble Fish, which was a Coppola film.

Electric Horseman is the one with Robert Redford as an alcoholic cowboy who rides a horse in a suit of Christmas lights. (Seriously, that was the plot. Hey, it was the seventies.)

Rhinestone is the 1984 trainwreck starring Sly Stallone as a New York City cab driver who’s primmed and primed to be a country/western singer by none other than Dolly Parton (Hey, it was the eighties.)

Rhinestone Cowboy is a Glen Campbell song that has no relation any of this mess but is close enough in title to act as an enabling variable for confusion.

Somewhat related, if second guessing still looms about the accuracy of the first movie, is Midnight Run. It’s the 1988 buddy movie starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. It has no cowboys.

Midnight Express, on the other hand, is about Turkish prisons.

Any questions?

In fact, I can’t think of any movie to date that has tried to do as much as this movie does successfully. It gets high scores all around—from the acting, to the screenplay, to the cinematography. Ang Lee has directed a timeless movie, filled with tenderness and tension. With an execution that’s at times both quiet and bold, it cuts to the center of some very complicated social and psychological issues.

Yes, everything it says about gays will be picked apart, analyzed, and regurgitated by supporters and non-supporters (who may or may not have even seen the movie) ad nausea. But it would be a lie to say that this movie only warrants respect for the unapologetic way it explores its subject matter. I could editorialize. I could talk about how some of the conclusions it makes and the perspectives it gives are long overdue for a national discussion. But in the end, I walked away truly feeling that at every level, this movie deserves the Oscar nods that will undoubtedly get thrown its way.

The rest will be movie history.

We’ve seen this before from the director. Actually, it almost became his trademark in the late eighties—take a family split apart by divorce, engulf them in extraordinary circumstances, and watch as the healing begins.

This uniting dynamic, plus a simple convention of going from point A to point B are all that’s involved with the plot. But a fittingly primal theme of mere survival is the real adrenaline juice that keeps this story moving along, and with good reason too. The creatures in this adaptation of H.G. Wells classic story are rendered true to form. That is to say they stand on three legs, walk over a foreboding horizon, and fire out death rays onto an unexpecting populace with blunt mercilessness.

As Ray Ferrier, a self-centered everyman who’s own teenage son thinks of as “a dick,” Tom Cruise steps up to the plate with shocking believability. (Well, maybe not so shocking given his recent statements.) Sure, we’re treated to some contractual scenes of him running down the middle of the street in a panic, but his acting hyper-drive is kept in reasonable gear. Plus, Dakota Fanning plays the part of his perilous daughter with such authenticity, it’s hard to imagine anyone playing opposite her would come off looking bad. She has “save me” written all over her.

Tim Robbins’ surprising and short-lived appearance tries to inject some social relevancy. But his character’s obsession with launching a counter-insurgency against the aliens because “history has told us a thousand times that occupations don’t work” is easily trumped by the impact of Cruise’s character’s decision to do what’s necessary for his daughter to live.

It’s difficult to explain without ruining too much, but the window of opportunity for making a sweeping statement about war is quickly closed.

And perhaps that’s all for the better. War of the Worlds may stay more pertinent and visceral by focusing on one man’s decisions in the heat of battle, not the decisions of the entire human species.

That’s probably not even how Wells himself imagined it, but it works pretty well for now.

The real title for writer/director Christopher Nolan’s latest incarnation of the Dark Knight should simply be called “Batman Moves On.”

The new film bares little resemblance to the movies of the last decade, save for a few coincidences. Just like in the 1989 film, when the winged avenger makes his first appearance, he stoically whispers to the bad guy when asked about his identity, “I’m Batman.”

Well, yeah. What else is he supposed to say?

Actually, it may have well been made 800 years after those other movies, not 8, because in terms of what this movie says about the character of Batman, it’s light years ahead. Like Bruce Wayne’s love interest, Rachel, confides to him, “It’s not what you hide on the inside that counts, it’s the actions you take.” And that’s part of the real reason I think this movie may connect as such a powerful statement for our times. In an early scene, Bruce Wayne is confronted with the decision to behead a criminal in order to join ranks with the, uh, “shadowy” ninjas known as the “League of Shadows.” Eerily reminiscent of debates over war and torture going on in our country today, it sparks an ongoing, inspirational, and underlying theme—strive to be better than your enemies, not below or equal to them.

To that end, Bruce Wayne’s motivations are always clear, if not uncomfortably close, and psychology plays a big part in all of the characters. Fear, as usual, is the main ingredient in the Gotham City stew. And all those who dwell there get a taste.

In the script, Nolan covers new ground nicely by using methodical pragmatism whenever possible. We’re not just introduced to the bat cave. We understand how it came to be and why. This is a vastly different approach from the pure gut instinct of, say, I don’t know… some guy that comic book geeks call Frank Miller. But it’s surprisingly appealing. The sophistication he takes in making Batman plausible may even match the level of Burton’s artistic vision, thereby equalling the two.

Although for some reason the veterans of the cast (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman) get all the best lines, the acting in Batman Begins exceeds any other version to date. Christian Bale brings a presence that shows depth as Bruce Wayne, a confilicted and wounded persona that’s capable of manipulating and being manipulated.

Given the amount of interpretation over the years, from comic book, to campy television show, to graphic novel, to stylized cartoons, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that the Batman mythos lives on so vibrantly and so soon after another successful vision.

But for his sake, and for the sake of confronting our own fear of doing the right thing, I’m glad it does.

As for the rest of us, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Much like Tarantino’s work, audiences are likely to react with extreme like or dislike to this gritty and violent comic book world, which marries murder, mayhem, sex, religion, and something else so horrendous I’m afraid I might spoil the fun (hint: Elijah Wood ain’t playing no Hobbit in this.).

Undoubtedly, Sin City was one of Miller’s best works. So, the attention to detailing each frame with the distinct look of pen and ink, just as it appears in the graphic novels, should only be a plus. After all, with the amount of influence Miller’s probably had on contemporary film in character development and action sequencing, much of the surprise may run the risk of appearing par for the course in today’s Hollywood. I have a feeling, though, that the inspiration from comic book to movie and from movie to comic book is mutual, if not symbiotic.

But that doesn’t answer what this film is about. To really look at the film deeply, I think the answer swims with the little fish and sea creatures that make an appearance every 15 or so minutes. Using computer generated images, Anderson intentionally paints them with oversaturated colors and exaggerated movements, giving them a “hypereal” movie existence. By no coincidence, I think, hyperreality is also a theme that defines the main character’s inner struggle—almost as if he were contemplating Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation during a mid-life crisis. Consider this:

It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication, nor even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself; that is, an operation to deter every real process by its operational double, a metastable, programmatic, perfect descriptive machine which provides all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes.

Got that? I only got a little. Which brings me to why this movie isn’t drop on the floor funny. It couldn’t be. The element of parody is kept largely at bay. While it’s not a film strictly for academia, it’s also not for the masses either. Honestly, I wonder how the studio execs agreed to have it made. But it is unique and it is entertaining in its purposely quirky way. The story does not have a traditional arch and little is resolved towards the end, but the characters, like in all of Anderson’s films, reveal something in them that no other movie made in Hollywood can. They come alive through cultural signs and simulation. They may be deadpan funny, but they’re far from dead.

The reality, though, was something entirely different. The theater we sat in was packed. Shoulder to shoulder, there were the adults watching a political documentary in total silence as Spider-Man 2 blasted down the hall (respectively packed with kids, I’m sure). To my astonishment, this was happening weeks after the movie had been picked apart, defended, praised, demonized, and regurgitated back up all over my cable TV remote.

I found the film itself engaging. It asks some important questions which truthfully could have been narrowed down for more focus, such as in Bowling for Columbine. Moore has an innate ability to ask innocent questions and can pursue their answers as if no innocence were presumed. Some of that felt forced in F9/11. But it is still powerful in many ways. One can only see it to find out how.

Now, a lot of the talking heads are calling Michael Moore bad names. They’re calling him un-American. They’re saying he’s rooting for the “other side.” Christopher Hitchens, an academic Englishman about as physically intimidating as Benny Hill, sounds as if he wants to take Moore into a back alley to break a bottle of Scotch over his head.

This kind of stuff wreaks of people with too much invested in their own Iraq theories. I can remember Hitch on a talk show not long after 9/11. Having already distanced himself from the left-leaning Nation magazine publicly, he’d taken a stance in full support of an “inevitable” war, and made a statement that flabbergasts me to this day in its arrogant supposition. Support for the Iraq war and for the President was at an all time high and could only mean one thing for the Democrats. “They’ll just go the way of the Whigs,” he said in his stealthy sit-back manner.

Looking at some polls today, I guess we’ll see about that one.

In fact, I can’t think of another movie that steals a concept so blatantly, without giving it some kind of credit. Risky Business was an obvious paradigm, not just for plot, but for style and substance as well. There’s a musical narrative that’s noticable, sexual fantasy and comic innuendo abound, and there’s an existential reliance on upper-middle class coming of age to provide depth. But make no mistake about it, scene for scene, character for character; they’re all unchanged from the original movie starring Tom Cruise. It’s as if the two movies co-exist in the exact same neighborhood, only the clothes are a little different a few houses down the block.

With all that to consider, I still thought there was some good production and casting value to this movie. I was happy to see Elisha Cuthbert (the girl from 24) not playing Jack Bauer’s vulnerable daughter for once. And at times, the characters did stand out from their 80′s evil twins. It was only a few days after the movie that I really started to notice the similarities as an annoyance, but maybe that’s because I, myself, am an incurable child of that era— still waiting for Rebecca De Mornay to make her fabulous entrance.