One of the worst products of Hollywood's epic era stars a youthful Richard Burton as the bold conqueror, replete with fluffy blond wig. Decently performed by Burton and the likes of Frederic March, Harry Andrews, etc, Alexander The Great is beautifully shot (and nicely cleaned up on this DVD by MGM/UA) but suffers from pacing so leaden that it makes El Cid look like The Terminator. Amazing to think that, five years later, writer/director Robert Rossen would redeem himself by making The Hustler.
After the largely unheralded triumph of 2001's Tremendous Efforts, Toronto brothers Dallas and Travis Good-along with Sean Dean and sometime Pernice Brother, Mike Belitsky-serve up their finest yet. With Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor replacing old producer Steve Albini, their trademark mix of Sergio Leone twitch, surf, cowpunk and desert-rock is cushioned with Lee Hazlewood-like ballads ("Oak Ridges", "The Story's Often Told"), fat horns ("Mile Over Mecca") and spooky duets (Dallas and mother Margaret's "A Steep Climb"), without compromising intensity.
South African director Oliver Schmitz revisits the same territory as his angry anti-apartheid classic from 1988, Mapantsula, delivering a wry but equally scathing account of his post-Mandela homeland. Researching a role as a street hoodlum, a middle-class black actor (Tony Kgoroge) returns to his childhood township near Johannesburg to learn street cred from his former friend, a car-jacking gangster (Rapulana Seiphemo). A gripping, funny, darkly satirical thriller.
