What's cool in your theater

    by Nick Nance

    Rarely does a Broadway play make it to the big screen. When one does, it is most commonly full of bad acting and, most of all, is poorly written.

    The latest Broadway hit to make it, Chicago, lacks nothing. Incredible acting and singing dominate throughout while plot twists leave the audience guessing with laughter.

    The movie begins with Velma's (Catherine Zeta Jones) getting arrested for murder.

    At the same time, Roxie (Rene Zellweger) is arrested for murdering the man she is having an affair with.

    The two meet in prison and become instant enemies.

    Velma is snotty and rude to everyone she comes in contact with. However, she will soon realize popularity isn't everything.

    Billy (Richard Gere) is a high-flying big-time lawyer who likes himself and fame more than anyone else.

    He shows little interest in knowing anything about his clients, both Velma and Roxie.

    The well-sung and greatly entertaining songs performed by the stars show these people are genuine actors.

    Undoubtedly, this film will be heavily decorated come award time. Chicago is an energetic and entertaining film. If you liked Moulin Rouge, you will love Chicago.

    CIA hit man, Chuck Barris, became famous for his day job on television. However, his double life soon caught up to him. Or did it ever exist?

    In the new movie Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the story of a deeply woven and secretive lifestyle is told through the eyes of Barris.

    Barris (Sam Rockwell) begins in show business by giving tours of the ABC headquarters.

    Convinced he belongs in the television business, he develops numerous shows.

    He becomes known for shows such as The Dating Game and The Gong Show. However, his success lands him in the spotlight of a CIA recruiter.

    The CIA recruiter (George Clooney) tells Barris he has been selected because he matches an undisclosed profile.

    Barris is then enlisted to travel the world and carry out his orders to kill. The film is adapted from Barris' cult-classic, Unauthorized Autobiography.

    Confessions of a Dangerous Mind marks the directorial debut of Clooney and also features Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind will be okay to rent.

    Imagine having family members taken away for resettlement. The thought of forced separation is scary. However, it was part of life for several thousand Aborigine people in Australia for most of the 1900s.

    The recent film Rabbit Proof Fence, a story of three young girls, follows their sufferings from the forced resettlement.

    The Australian government would take children who were half white and half Aborigine from their families to assimilate them into white culture. These people were known as half-caste.

    The story in Rabbit Proof Fence follows Molly, Daisy and Gracie, who were fathered by white workers at Jigalong, a fence maintence outpost in Australia's remote northwest.

    The three girls were taken and forced to live at Moore River Native Settlement, where they would learn white culture. The three stayed for two days and left.

    They soon found the rabbit fence that stretched from the northern shore to the south. The fence stretched the 2,000 miles unbroken for nearly 50 years.

    Once the group found the fence, they began their 500-mile journey home. They outsmarted trackers and search parties to avoid recapture.

    The story of Rabbit Proof Fence is an emotional tale of how oppression stems from lack of education. Americans will remember the plight endured by the Native American people and hopefully realize the pain their people suffered as well.

    Despite slow and often boring scenes, the story is genuine and worth experiencing.

    The final frontier has been traveled yet again, for the last time É supposedly.

    After the final Star Trek starring William Shatner, Trekies were told there would be no more of the series created by Gene Rodenberry. Since then four more have appeared.

    The latest installment of the sci-fi series, based on what a futuristic galaxy will be like, includes headstrong Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) meeting a younger "cloned" version of himself.

    The crew of the Enterprise must prevent this Picard clone from using his secret weapon.

    He plans to end the dominance of humans by making them extinct and blowing up Earth. No, Austin Powers is not in this movie. Nor, does the clone demand one million dollars.

    He does make a demand on Picard's blood. However, he is not a vampire, and Buffy is nowhere to be found.

    Data makes the biggest decision of his non-human existence, and ends it.

    In an emotional scene, Data pays the ultimate sacrifice and becomes the most human he had ever been by saving his friend.

    Star Trek: Nemesis is entertaining. It lacks the mass appeal to attract more than the Trekies, but is worth seeing.

    During WWII, Hitler told his people the war was the "final solution to the Jewish problem."

    He developed an army and weapons at a pace that was unprecedented.

    Utilizing his massive and advanced German army, Hitler advanced through country after country across Europe.

    Poland was one of the first countries to fall to the advancing Germans.

    On August 18, 1940, Hans Frank, Nazi governor of occupied Poland, announced plans to make Krakow free of Jews, declaring, "The Jews must vanish from the face of the earth."

    Treatment of the Jewish people throughout Poland and the rest of Europe followed the same pattern.

    Roman Polanski's latest film, The Pianist, follows the story of a Polish Jew named Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody, a classical musician who survived the Holocaust.

    Based on the memoirs of Szpilman, the film is historically factual and graphic describing the horrific events the young artist witnessed.

    Szpilman was playing Chopin on a Warsaw radio station when the first German bombs fell on the city. Szpilman's family was prosperous and secure until the Germans arrived.

    A belief that the Germans would soon be defeated prevented many Poles from fleeing the city. Those who stayed were to face the wrath of the war.

    Szpilman witnessed his entire family loaded into railroad cattle cars and transported to incineration camps.

    Szpilman's survival was largely the result of his connection with the underground Polish resistance.

    However, the least likely person of all, a German officer, protected the final days the musician spent in hiding.

    Director Polanski himself was saved when his father pushed him through the barbed wire fence of the concentration camp.

    Packing a strong emotional punch, The Pianist is a heart wrenching historic tale of what hate and evil can do to the world.