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At its core, Munich is a straightforward thriller. Based on the book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas, it's built on a relatively stock movie premise, the revenge plot: innocent people are killed, the bad guys got away with it, and someone has to make them pay. But director Steven Spielberg uses that as a starting point to delve into complex ethical questions about the cyclic nature of revenge and the moral price of violence. The movie starts with a rush. The opening portrays the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by PLO terrorists at the 1972 Olympics with scenes as heart-stopping and terrifying as the best of any horror movie. After the tragic incident is over and several of the terrorists have gone free, the Israeli government of Golda Meir recruits Avner (Eric Bana) to lead a team of paid-off-the-book agents to hunt down those responsible throughout Europe, and eliminate them one-by-one (in reality, there were several teams). It's physically and emotionally messy work, and conflicts between Avner and his team's handler, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush), over information Avner doesn't want to provide only make things harder. Soon the work starts to take its toll on Avner, and the deeper moral questions of right and wrong come into play, especially as it becomes clear that Avner is being hunted in return, and that his family's safety may be in jeopardy.

By all rights, Munich should be an unqualified success--it has gripping subject matter relevant to current events; it was co-written by one of America's greatest living playwrights (Tony Kushner, Angels in America) and an accomplished screenwriter (Eric Roth); it stars an appealing and likeable actor in Eric Bana; and it was helmed by Steven Spielberg, of all people. While it certainly is a great movie, it falls just short of the immense heights such talent should propel it to. This is due more to some questionable plot devices than anything else (such as the contrived use of a family of French informants to locate the terrorists). But while certain aspects ring hollow, the movie as a whole is a profound accomplishment, despite being only "inspired by true events," and not factually based on them. From the ferocious beginning to the unforgettable closing shot, Munich works on a visceral level while making a poignant plea for peace, and issuing an unmistakable warning about the destructive cycle of terror and revenge. As one of the characters intones, "There is no peace at the end of this." --Daniel Vancini

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An epic in length and breadth, this documentary aims at nothing less than a full-scale portrait of the most dominant institution on the planet Earth in our lifetime--a phenomenon all the more remarkable, if not downright frightening, when you consider that the corporation as we know it has been around for only about 150 years. It used to be that corporations were, by definition, short-lived and finite in agenda. If a town needed a bridge built, a corporation was set up to finance and complete the project; when the bridge was an accomplished fact, the corporation ceased to be. Then came the 19th-century robber barons, and the courts were prevailed upon to define corporations not as get-the-job-done mechanisms but as persons under the 14th Amendment with full civil rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (i.e., power and profit)--ad infinitum.

The Corporation defines this endlessly mutating life-form in exhaustive detail, measuring the many ways it has not only come to dominate but to deform our reality. The movie performs a running psychoanalysis of this entity with the characteristics of a prototypical psychopath: a callous unconcern for the feelings and safety of others, an incapacity to experience guilt, an ingrained habit of lying for profit, etc. We are swept away on a demented odyssey through an altered cosmos, in which artificial chemicals are created for profit and incidentally contribute to a cancer epidemic; in which the folks who brought us Agent Orange devise a milk-increasing drug for a world in which there is already a glut of milk; in which an American computer company leased its systems to the Nazis--and serviced them on a monthly basis--so that the Holocaust could go forward as an orderly process.

The movie goes on too long, circles too many points obsessively and redundantly, and risks preaching-to-the-choir reductiveness by calling on the usual talking-head suspects--Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore. And except for an endlessly receding tracking shot in an infinite patents archive, there's scarcely an image worth recalling. Still, it maps the new reality. This is our world--welcome to it. --Richard T. Jameson

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Pernicious nonsense

I know I am going to be pilloried for this, but nonetheless, someone has to say it: This documentary is slickly edited but all the same simple-minded, misconceived, rubbish.

The film's political perspective seems to be something like anarcho-syndicalism: the view that a society should be free of all compulsory rules, where all individuals will voluntarily work towards the common goals of the community, unconstrained by the imposed hierarchy of government or capitalism.

Well, it's an idea that has its merits, and some obvious difficulties too, to the point that while the film makers are prepared to raise accusing fingers at their capitalist adversaries, they're notably short of ideas on what to do instead. The best they can come up with is some Froot-Looped Californian backwater which decides, municipally, to discuss whether "whether democracy is even possible when large corporations wield so much wealth and power under law." The collective gripe, it seems, is with Chain Restaurants which are opening unchecked in the town (and, presumably, doing steady business with the very same locals). A town meeting is called where these well-intentioned but basically stupid people are confronted with some fairly obvious truths:

Quotes one local businessman: "if you don't like Pepsi-Cola, Bank of America, well, if you don't like what they do, don't use 'em. That's the way I see the people's power is."

That's it, in a nutshell. That answers the question absolutely, and pretty much every substantial point this documentary has to make. A subsequent participant, who still hasn't understood it, intones (to loud cheering): "People that say that they fear their government. I really hope that they understand that they're allowed to participate in their government; they're not allowed to participate in anything the corporations do."

Well, nothing could be further from the truth: every transaction with a corporation is a direct, financial, participation in what it does, and represents a benefit that it wants and needs, just as a conscious refusal to transact with a corporation represents a lost opportunity. You can participate as often or as rarely as you like, but most people participate many times every day. In the political system, by enormous contrast, the vast majority get a solitary "participation" every fours years, a single tick supposed to represent the complicated system of political views held by that single voter; a vote for a candidate who doesn't win is ignored altogether, and even a vote for the winner, does not guarantee its mandate will be carried out. Some participation in the system *that* is.

In any case, in their assault on "The Corporation", the filmmakers engage in some fundamental discombobulations. Consider this: "Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, The Corporation is today's dominant institution".

Stop the tape right there, 0 minutes, 25 seconds on the counter. In these "other times and places" there was only *one* Church. There was *one* Monarchy, there was *one* Communist Party. They had each was indeed a dominant institution in the community, able to exact compliance by compulsion.

There are *millions* of corporations, big and small, good and bad, high-minded and scurrilous, and they're all competing against each other for your dollars. If you don't like what one does, another will be in like Flynn. That is a colossal difference. Unless you accept Chomsky's view (and given the amount of airtime he gets, it's reasonable to assume the producers do) that all capitalists are secretly acting in collusion with each other to systematically oppress the masses - you will note there *is* no "The Corporation".

The irony is that, if you use your imagination, individual Corporations aren't un-reminiscent of anarcho-syndicalist communes: each is a voluntary assembly of individuals, all of whom share a common purpose, and who are voluntarily acting in accordance with agreed rules with to the betterment of all in the collective.

I'm sure the filmmakers would rebut this by pointing to the sweatshops in El Salvador, and the anecdote might well implicate a particular corporation - but it doesn't implicate *The Corporation*. And let it not be forgotten that corporations - such as those publishing and distributing this film, and Chomsky's and Naomi Klein's books, were instrumental in identifying and, through the power of the market, discouraging unconscionable practices, in a way that Governments (let alone anarcho-syndicalist communes!) manifestly have not been able to do. In the end it was the market, not the Government, that found Enron out; and the market which bore the losses.

Corporations, like guns, are no more and no less than a reflection of the people who use them. And here is the big point missed, or ignored, by the makers of this film: "the people who use them" means, predominantly, the people who consume their products. That is, US. The great, downtrodden masses. If you don't understand that, you have no hope of getting any purchase on the political debate this film attempts to engage in. Apparently, the makers of this film don't understand that. If it is true that all Corporations are bad apples, then we need to be looking at ourselves, as owners, shareholders, customers and counterparties of corporations. Blaming the form itself won't do any good whatsoever.

Finally, to sum up with a populist punch, Michael Moore is wheeled out to congratulate himself, which he does in fine style. But in identifying what he sees as an irony, Moore misses the much larger one in what he is saying:

"it's very ironic that I'm able to do all this and yet ... I'm on networks, I'm distributed by studios that are owned by large corporate entities. Now, why would they put me out there when I am opposed to everything that they stand for? ... It's because they don't believe in anything. They put me on there because they know that there are millions of people that want to see my film or watch the TV show and so they're going to make money ... I'm driving my truck through this incredible flaw in capitalism ..."

No, Michael, that's not ironic, and that's not a flaw in capitalism. It's the very point of capitalism. That's all the evidence you should need of its democracy, it's willingness to admit of participation, of its agnosticism, of its openness to any perspective that "the masses" will be interested in. If it will sell, the market will sell it.

The real irony is that Michael Moore - and the makers of this silly documentary - don't appreciate that very point.

Olly Buxton

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For its seventh edition, The Amazing Race welcomed two familiar faces. Reality TV vets Rob and Amber were one of eleven teams competing for the million-dollar prize. The other contestants covered the spectrum, like boyfriends Lynn and Alex, brothers Brian and Greg, married couple Uchenna and Joyce, and mother/son duo Susan and Patrick. The latter decides he'll do whatever it takes to beat Boston Rob. As he notes in the season premiere, "I watched Survivor. He's as dumb as a rock." The show’s top-rated installment spanned five continents and 40,000 miles, from Long Beach, CA to Fort Lauderdale, FL. Other pit stops include Buenos Aires, Istanbul, and London. Some of the more colorful challenges include llama herding in Peru and cave rappelling in South Africa, while the emotional high point is a trip to a Soweto orphanage, an experience that reduces Uchenna and Joyce to tears. There will also be sacrifices along the way, as when Gretchen, the second oldest contestant--after her 69-year-old husband, Meredith--has a frightening fall and Joyce says so long to her hair. The seventh season of The Amazing Race is broken into 12 episodes, including three two-part programs. This boxed set features a mini-documentary, chatty commentary from four of the highest-ranked teams, and over three hours of deleted material. After the race aired, Lynn and Alex and Rob and Amber--on network TV, naturally--tied the knot. It was also revealed that Joyce once had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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The 2003 debut of Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central marked a high point for the cable channel, and now the entire, wildly creative first season can be seen, with hundreds of bleeps removed. That's not to say Chappelle's Show is perfect entertainment: there are too many moments among the 12 episodes here that descend into pointless scatology and booty fever. But for the most part, Chappelle, a talented comic slowly growing into greatness, is trying to push the sketch-humor envelope and succeeds at surprising us with original concepts and merciless execution.

The merely clever material includes "National Geography's Third World Girls Gone Wild," basically an update on those topless-native-women gags of yore, and Chappelle's "Educated Guess Line," in which the sage comic eschews psychic powers to logically deduce racial insights from his callers' questions. Far more wicked is an in-your-face satire on such autobiographical film fare as Antwone Fisher and 8 Mile, in which Chappelle plays himself ascending from street hustler to rapper-comedian to bona fide savior of America. The best thing here, however, is a parallel-universe version of The Real World, in which the usual racial proportions on MTV's workhorse series are reversed, thrusting a token white guy into a Hoboken houseful of crazy African Americans. There are also laughs in "Ask a Gay Guy with Mario Cantoned," as well as a sketch about an "inner-thoughts cam" and a nasty piece about Chappelle's Make-a-Wish visit to a dying child, which decays into a cruel video game competition. Overlooking the series' weaker material, this is outstanding television comedy. --Tom Keogh

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Movie critic Roger Ebert made this amusing observation about Malice: "This is the only movie I can recall in which an entire subplot about a serial killer is thrown in simply for atmosphere." He's referring to the fact that this hokey but highly charged thriller is so packed with plot twists and red herrings that you'll soon find yourself so confused that you just have to sit back and hope that it will all make sense by the time the credits roll. It never does make much sense, but the movie at least has the look, feel, and twisted momentum of a really good thriller, and the talent on both sides of the camera is pretty impressive. Alec Baldwin plays a hot-shot surgeon who meets up with an old med-school buddy (Bill Pullman), whose wife (Nicole Kidman) has no objections when Baldwin moves into the upstairs room of their New England Victorian home. The situation's ripe for intrigue, suspicion, temptation, emergency surgery, legal proceedings, and just about anything else you'd find in a movie that desperately struggles to out-Hitchcock Hitchcock. Talk about McGuffins--this movie's chock full of 'em! When the plot thickens to the consistency and clarity of quicksand, you can still enjoy the darkly stylish work of master cinematographer Gordon Willis--or you can check out director Harold Becker's more coherent thriller Sea of Love. With Kidman and Baldwin working up a steamy lather, this one's just fun enough to be an agreeable waste of time. --Jeff Shannon

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Spring, 1864. The air is filled with exploding gunfire and the awful sounds of men collapsing in agony as they march forward into Hell. Relive the most vicious fighting of the Civil War, in which General Ulysses S. Grant forcibly reversed the tide of the conflict by paying with the blood of thousands. It was a desperate time for the Union. For three bloody years and despite their greater numbers, the troops had frequently been outmatched by the brilliant strategies of the Confederate leader, General Robert E. Lee. As General Ulysses S. Grant took charge of the Army of the Potomac that spring, he was determined to gain the upper hand in the war once and for all - no matter what the cost. Grant's relentless tactics led to furious clashes, including the Battle of the Wilderness, the Battle at Laura Hill and the fighting at the Mule Shoe and Cold Harbor. In a few short weeks, Grant sacrificed 50,000 men, more Americans than were lost during the entire Vietnam War. But his brutal strategies worked. By the time of Lee's surrender a year later, his own army of 60,000 had been decimated, reduced to a mere 7,500. These crucial weeks are authentically dramatized, using over 10,000 Civil War re-enactors, 2,000 horses, 50 cannons and heart-rending text from letters of those who were there. Filmed on hallowed ground and with riveting commentary by author Jeff Shaara (Gods and Generals) and noted Civil War expert, Edwin C. Bearss, it's a chillingly realistic experience of the final, desperate hours between North and South.

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Nearly three years after it was filmed, The Great Raid finally appeared as a welcome reminder that good old-fashioned World War II movies never go out of style. While lacking the scale, prestige, and pulse-pounding momentum of Saving Private Ryan, this fact-based war drama benefits from a back-to-basics approach to realism and a rousing rescue climax that more than compensates for the slower passages that precede it. Adapted from the books The Great Raid on Cabanatuan and Ghost Soldiers, it chronicles the five-day mission (in late January 1945) to rescue 511 American prisoners of war held by the Japanese at Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines. Under the direction of neo-noir specialist John Dahl (The Last Seduction), the film's three-part structure follows the raid mission led by Lt. Col. Mucci (Benjamin Bratt); the plight of the POWs at Cabanatuan, including malaria-stricken Maj. Gibson (Joseph Fiennes); and civilian resistance in Manila as carried out by real-life hero and Gibson's (fictional) would-be lover Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen), whose effort to aid the POWs is vigilantly monitored by the enemy Japanese. In keeping with war-movie traditions, Dahl handles character and action with no-nonsense intelligence, favoring a slow build over pumped-up adrenalin. By the time the miraculous rescue is executed with critical assistance by Filpino guerillas, The Great Raid has earned its stripes, honoring the brave men who carried out the most successful rescue mission in U.S. military history. --Jeff Shannon

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DVD Full-Screen Rip-Off of a Great Film

I think this film is excellent, worthy of five stars. I am rating the DVD. Miramax is forcing people to buy the extra edition with the book, for $40 in stores. That is the only way to get the widescreen version. If you just want the widescreen DVD, you cannot get it. The bare-bones DVD (not even a trailer) comes only in fullscreen! I went all over town checking it out. Typical Miramax, over-pricing its DVDs. Watch out if you buy one of the their older DVDs, as many of them came only as non-anamorphic- that way, they could release another issue in anamorphic format. I hate that company.

Great movie that was underated

This is an excellent movie about the (probably) the greatest rescue mission in World War II. After reading the book, Ghost Soldiers, by Hampton Sides several years ago. It was delightful to see this movie made.



Quality war treatment of one aspect of the Pacific theatre

The first half of this fine film set in the Philippines is rather morose and measured, and punctuated with more than several representations of Japanese brutality against cityfolk in Manila & American POWs in various camps. In an era when Amnesty International characterizes Guantanamo Bay's holding facility as akin to Soviet death camps it is, of course, politically incorrect to show anyone but Americans as brutal. That's why, no doubt, a number of reviewers of this film expressed various reservations about this competently told story of the most successful rescue mission in US military history. The latter half of the film shows how this was accomplished, and thus is replete with a lot more action than the first half; detailing 5 eventful days in January of 1945. The Cabanatuan POW camp is eventually stormed, freeing 611 American POWs with the loss of just 2 US Army Rangers & 21 Filipino guerilla fighters. The film is well shot; looks "right," regarding the era in which it is set, and conveys the gravity of that difficult time as well. It is, in short, a worthy war film, which ought be seen if you are at all interested is trying to visualize what you may perhaps have read concerning the war in the pacific. Unfortunately, most of the better-made films depicting events of World War Two concern European events and/or campaigns, but the Pacific War theatre has gotten a most useful addition in the name of "The Great Raid." Cheers!

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Created by Stephen J. Cannell (The Rockford Files, 21 Jump Street, among others), the USA Network's Silk Stalkings was about as sexy as non-premium cable TV got in the early 1990s. Palm Beach homicide detectives Rita Lee Lance (Mitzi Kapture) and Chris Lorenzo (Rob Estes) investigate crimes they call "silk stalkings," murders that expose the seamy--and steamy--side of high society. Rita and Chris investigate the crimes, frequently by going undercover (so to speak) to expose macho men or their beautiful women companions, who tend to lounge about in swimwear or lingerie. During the first season, the detectives face ghosts from their pasts and push the edge of their profession (Ben Vereen plays their exasperated captain, a role later filled by Charlie Brill), all the while swapping sexual innuendo but dating other people with disappointing results. The platonic-partners schtick is nothing The X-Files or Moonlighting didn't do with more style, but the stars did have a chemistry that in later years their replacements were never able to re-Kapture.

In addition to the 22 episodes, the DVD set features 39 minutes of interviews with Cannell, an almost unrecognizable Estes, a straight-haired Kapture (both stars talk about each other, their departures, and other cast members), and a nostalgic Vereen, plus a joint reminiscence between Cannell and Vereen. --David Horiuchi

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The first Robocop was thrilling, hilarious, and totally original--none of which has as much to do with the film's spawning two sequels (plus two separate television shows) as its $50 million-plus take at the box office. Though the Law of Diminishing Returns inevitably applies to the theatrical trilogy, the central premise is so strong that each of the lesser sequels has at least a few moments worth catching. That's because the original (wherein Detroit cop Peter Weller, killed in the line of duty, gets transformed into a crime-fighting cyborg) set up an entire world. Director Paul Verhoeven spends as much time lampooning television news, commercial products, and big business as he does on the story; however violent or gory things get (and they get quite icky), the tone throughout is comic, even giddy. Robocop 2, helmed by Irvin Kershner of The Empire Strikes Back fame, sobers up considerably. The film is rather underrated; sure, there are fewer ads and newsbreaks this time around, but there are several inventive touches--Robocop is briefly reprogrammed into a homily-spouting Dudley Do-Right; drug dealers step in to bail out the financially strapped city--and the villains (including the most foul-mouthed, amoral 12-year-old in movie history) are less outrageous than in the first installment. Robocop 3, however, is profit-driven hash. Having Robocop (now acted by Robert John Burke) join a citizens' uprising is a nice idea, and even the ninja android could have been fun, but the movie tries too often to be heartwarming, an emotion thoroughly out of place in this wickedly satirical series. --Bruce Reid

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Don't throw that Criterion DVD out just yet...

Since I've already reviewed the single-disc versions of RoboCop (Criterion Collection edition, dated July 18, 2002 at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1559408898/qid%3D1090823802/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-5229942-8183256), RoboCop 2 (July 25, 2004 at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001VTPW2/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/002-5229942-8183256?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance) and RoboCop 3 (July 26, 2004 at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001VTPWC/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/002-5229942-8183256?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance), I'm gonna spend the vast majority of this review covering the RoboCop 1 extended edition disc and its extra features, and make comparisons and contrasts between it and the Criterion Collection version DVD.

And away we go...

While the picture in the MGM box set version of `Robo 1' is not quite as grainy as the Criterion edition, it's also a fair deal darker-- which doesn't help out the nighttime and low-lit scenes, `natch. The remastered 5.1 soundtrack mix adds a few new layers of sound to the movie that have never been heard before. I noticed the sound difference when I did a side-by-side comparison of the Murphy death scenes on both DVDs. The MGM box set version featured more screams of agony from our ill-fated hero than what could be heard in the Criterion rendition. And before you ask: yes, doing side-by-side comparisons of my fave DVD movies is something I consider "fun". Hey, you didn't think I attained my status as a Top 100 reviewer (as of this writing) by having any sort of social life, did'ja? Let's get real here, folks...


Anyway, let's get back on the track. The MGM version also contains a new secondary commentary track with most of the same guys who did the Criterion commentary track, including director Paul Verhoeven, executive producer John Davison, and co-writer Ed Neumeier. Most of the stuff covered in the new track was not discussed in the old one, which means you'll inundated with a whole new set of info and anecdotes that ya didn't hear on the old track. The weird thing is, the guys talk about the scenes that they had to shorten for the theatrical release-- which were restored to this DVD-- as if they hadn't been restored to the DVD at all. Kinda makes me wonder if MGM was originally going to include just the cut-down version of the movie to this box set, but then thought better of it without getting the guys to record a new commentary track. Eh, like it really matters all that much...

The MGM version also includes a wide array of special features that weren't on the Criterion release, such as deleted scenes like an extra vignette with Bix "I'd Buy THAT For A Dollar!" Snyder, a Q&A press conference with Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) about RoboCop, and a couple other excised bits that look like they were recorded on that film they use to film actors testing for screen roles. I think it's called "B-roll" film or something.

Also included is a slo-mo look at the initial ED-209 stop-motion scene and corresponding storyboards featuring commentary with stop-motion man Phil Tippett. I found myself zoning out about halfway through this piece out of sheer boredom, and bailed on it as soon as I could. Topping things off is a trio of behind-the-scenes/"Making-Of" featurettes that give ya a peek at the effects, stunts, and other things that went into the production of the movie. I found these featurettes reasonably interesting, but I'd get a bit wacky when the director and actors would talk a little too seriously about the "depth" and "significance" of the production and the characters they play. If I wanted to hear about that stuff, I'd have hit the local sci-fi con where Peter Weller is the keynote speaker, thank you very much. Oh yes, we mustn't forget the obligatory theatrical trailers and a fairly cool TV spot.

Unfortunately, the Criterion version of the DVD contains extra features that aren't available in the MGM release. Such Criterion-exclusive extras include film-to-storyboard comparisons, storyboards of unfilmed scenes, and a text article on the making of `RoboCop'. So needless to say, if you're a completist Robo-fan DVD-phile who's just GOT to have every single `RoboCop'-related bit of bonus material available on digital video, you're gonna hafta grab both this set AND the Criterion Collection DVD (available at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1559408898/qid%3D1090823802/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-5229942-8183256) if ya wanna have it all...

`Late

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The Original Kings of Comedy achieves the seemingly impossible task of capturing the rollicking and sly comedy routines of stand-up and sitcom vets Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac and the magic of experiencing a live concert show. Director Spike Lee and his crew plant a multitude of cameras in a packed stadium and onstage (as well as backstage, as they follow the comedians) to catch the vivid immediacy of the show, which is as much about the audience as it is about the jokes. And the jokes are funny.

All four riff fast and furiously (and with much swearing) on the world in terms of race, family, sex, and in one routine, outer space. Hughley takes comedic aim at extreme sports and eating disorders, while Cedric harks back to the day when gang fights meant calling opponents out onto the dance floor. Bernie Mac, the self-confessed id comedian of the group, presents a routine that is simultaneously offensive and hilarious--an apt reminder that comedy can and should be vicious if we are ever to learn to laugh at ourselves and hopefully be the better for it. Harvey, who acts as the MC for the show, has some transcendent moments with the crowd (a '70s slow jam sing-along, anyone?) that have to be seen to be believed. There's no doubt as to why Kings was a hit with concert and movie audiences; the laughs keep coming, in the tradition of Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, with a sharp eye on the nuances of today's racially affected culture. --Shannon Gee

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