Works on many levels, ‘decide for oneself’ __ 7/10
Review by Brian Wright
Summary: A drama based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin. At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao’s cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he fell in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.
Rather a surprise movie, a feel-good semidocumentary, like Secretariat. And I expected it to be critiqued accordingly from the majority of the citizen-reviewers on IMDb. Alas, unlike Secretariat, virtually every one of the 40-some reviews of Dancer were almost embarrassingly glowing. The only erudite review I found not climbing on the ‘masterpiece’ bandwagon was from a writer in Vancouver: Continue reading
An excerpt from the recent column by Mike Adams on the problem of a militarized, federalized police force taking over the streets of America: shooting pet dogs, terrorizing young women for buying cookie dough, destroying property, thugs in uniform gone wild. Actually this column from Adams isn’t so much about countering the threat as it is patiently documenting the threat. But he does end with the obvious question and the obvious counter: When do Americans march on their state capitols and say enough!?