Impassioned and affecting as some of it is, this desperately sincere drama of life and death in Nowheresville, U.S.A., is also an arrogant failure.

NEWYORKER: 21 Grams

The video is dull and grainy, but it shows real-life drama: A comeuppance for David Ji, an entrepreneur who built a billion-dollar business importing dirt-cheap DVD players from a booming China, where he was born, and selling them at Wal-Mart and Circuit City stores in the U.S., his adopted home for two decades.

FORBES: Held Hostage In China

The video is dull and grainy, but it shows real-life drama: A comeuppance for David Ji, a celebrated U.S.-bred entrepreneur who built a billion-dollar business importing dirt-cheap DVD players from a booming China, where he was born, and selling them at Wal-Mart and Circuit City stores in the U.S., his adopted home for two decades.

FORBES: Held Hostage In China

This is high architectural drama, a luminous and exhilarating invitation into the structure's life and use.

WSJ: Cooper Union's New Building, at 41 Cooper Square | By WSJ Architecture Critic Ada Louis Huxtable

Despite some critics' concerns that this poignant film didn't portray John Nash 's real-life experiences honestly enough, there is no denying the artful manner in which Howard spins a tale that morphs from cold war drama to love story and then into everybody's favorite liet-motif: Triumph in the face of adversity.

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