Advantages: Great Performances Disadvantages: A LIttle Too Long
In Harlem in late 1960's and early 1970's Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) became one of the biggest drug lords in America. His drug empire became so successful because he was able to setup a direct link with the drug producers in the far east thereby "cutting out the middleman". He could sell his heroin at a better quality and cheaper than his rivals.
This brought him to the attention of the largely corrupt NYPD narcotics unit. The New Jersey police have setup a separate hand picked unit that they hope is not corrupt. Leading the unit is Det. Richie Roberts (Russel Crowe). An honest cop with womanising tendencies. They are to go after the top men only, eventually Lucas comes onto their radar.
Conclusion
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Watch out Martin Scorsese here comes Ridley Scott and he knows a thing or two about making movies ...
I asked ciao to include this wine, as I really wanted to share my find with all of you.
My first taste of this beautiful drink was on a summers evening at a friends barbeque. It is one of the nicest wines I have ever tasted and although I usually prefer white wine this one comes at the top of my list!
The wine
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Da Luca Primitivo Merlot to give it it?s full name is a full bodied red wine made from a combination of primitivo and merlot grapes both grown in the Salento peninsula in the south east of Italy. Before I tell you about the grapes, I would like to describe the Da Luca experience to you
On removing the black synthetic cork from the bottle and putting the bottle to your nose a rich, slightly spicy aroma tinged with fruit greets you. When poured the wine is a beautiful rich deep red. The taste is truly a delight ...
Advantages: Humour and interesting ideas, based on good book the premise rather than the plot) Disadvantages: Very hard to stage, too absurd?, not really an adaptation but a new story
any of the same characters. It's as if Peter Jackson had decided to make a trilogy of films about a ring of power, but without even reading Tolkien first!
In this case, however, that's not a criticism. To adapt the book for stage would've been practically impossible (it being largely a first person monologue, and involving rape scenes and the like). Instead Peter Lucas has just used the concept of dice-living as his own starting point for something original, and equally absurd. There's even a foreword from Luke Rhinehart congratulating him on this, which I take as a good sign. (Another consequence is I think it's pretty much irrelevant whether you've read Rhinehart's book - though if you enjoyed the idea behind that, you may well like this too).
The premise, in this case, is that a Dr Ratner has set up a Centre for research into ...