Weekend Movie Forecast: Crossing Over, An American Affair

Astra Taylor's documentary Examined Life encourages eight heavyweight philosophers—Cornel West (Matrix Reloaded), Michael Hardt, Slavoj Žižek, among them—to hold forth on their ideas on moral philosophy. J. Hoberman at the Village Voice says the film has "been assembled so that, without ever meeting face-to-face, the philosophers appear to critique each other's ideas... The beat goes on as political philosopher Hardt, co-author of Empire, rows the filmmaker around Central Park lake. Faint strains of salsa can be heard as Hardt explains how, 25 years before, he'd gone to Nicaragua to learn how to make a revolution. In the movie's best bit of improvisation, the professor gets so caught up in his ideas that he runs the boat aground."