August 27, 2004

Neither an atrocity nor a revelation, "The Brown Bunny" is a very watchable, often beautiful-looking attempt by the director Vincent Gallo to reproduce the kind of loosely structured mood pieces that found American and select foreign-language cinemas of the 1960's and 70's often at their most adventurous, with Monte Hellman's 1971 "Two-Lane Blacktop" the most obvious touchstone. Mr. Gallo plays Bud Clay, a motorcycle racer (and the title's symbolic bunny) on his way back home to Los Angeles from a New Hampshire meet. As Bud racks up miles, he stares moodily at the road, visits a childhood haunt, eats a lonely meal, sleeps a lonely motel sleep, takes his motorcycle for a spin and exchanges small talk with a few women, all of whom have the soft, bruised look of chronic disappointment. Eventually, Bud hits Los Angeles, where he checks into a hotel, and where yet another flower of femininity, Chloe Sevigny's Daisy, gives the film its back-story and furnishes what the porn industry calls, in rather more direct language, its economic raison d'etre. — Manohla Dargis

Alessandra Stanley reviews CNN Presents: The Mission of George W Bush and MSNBC's Brian Williams Reports: George Bush: The Father's Footsteps; photos (M)

US sprinters sweep men's 200-meter race at 2004 Olympics; Shawn Crawford wins gold, Bernard Williams silver and Justin Gatlin bronze; Felix Sanchez (Dominican Republic) wins men's 400-meter hurdles; Danny McFarlane (Jamaica) wins silver and Naman Keita (France) wins bronze; photos (M)

Classified parts of report by three Army generals on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison say procedures approved by Lt Gen Ricardo S Sanchez, former top commander in Iraq, and revisions made when Central Command found fault with initial policy, exceeded Geneva Convention guidelines as well as standard Army doctrines; say that Sanchez and his legal staff revised rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, sowing great confusion among interrogators, who understood Geneva guidelines poorly anyway; say military police and military intelligence soldiers who used abusive techniques believed they had been authorized by senior commanders; report shows in much clearer detail than ever before how interrogation practices from Afghanistan and Guantanamo, where detainees were not afforded protection of Geneva Conventions, were brought to Abu Ghraib, and how poorly nuances of what was acceptable in Iraq were understood by military intelligence officials there; classified sections of so-called Fay report reinforce criticisms made in report by independent panel headed by James R Schlesinger; photo; timeline (M)

Clyde Haberman column says it must be insulting to Queens that antiwar, anti-Bush groups seeking to demonstrate during Republican National Convention insist on being allowed to do it in Central Park rather than Flushing-Meadow Park, which the city has offered; says ignoring outer boroughs can be politically costly; notes that Republicans are taking delegates outside Manhattan (M)