Don’t Like Mike

As a longtime despiser of all things Michael Jordan, it’s nice to see that I’m not alone in my distaste. Charles Pierce dismantles the iconic huckster/former basketball player for Slate: “He talked like a man raised by focus groups.” And: “He’s gone from the game without a single footprint. He built upon the work of others, but he left very little of his own behind.”

Forced Whimsy

Watching The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou initially created a pleasant sensation — ah, yes, my old friend Wes Anderson — that over two hours turned tedious and finally grating. Anderson has taken his love of artifice and dry humor to its logical end and proves that it doesn’t work. Now, hopefully, he can go back to making rewarding movies.

Competent, Worthy, and Lacking

Maria Full of Grace is a straightforward, clinical, nearly artless movie that starts out as a rote tract on the human cost of the drug trade and eventually builds itself into a story in which the audience has an emotional investment. In the end, it sits somewhere between the brilliant and razor-sharp British miniseries Traffik and its obvious, too-condensed American re-make Traffic (directed by Steven Soderbergh).