The film House of Sand and Fog tells the story of an Iranian immigrant whose legal struggle over a home purchase escalates into tragedy. NPR's Bob Mondello has a review.
Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.
Two decades after Maximus fought and died in ancient Rome's Colosseum in the first film, his son Lucius, played by Paul Mescal, finds himself in much the same situation in Gladiator II.