Frederick Knott's theatrical thriller, forever a staple of provincial playhouses, comes to the screen under the aegis of Alfred Hitchcock (Notorious). Its cinematization, however, depends not so much on any overt attacks on its staginess and talkiness as on the simple imposition of 3-D; and not so much on any …
Frederick Knott's theatrical thriller, forever a staple of provincial playhouses, comes to the screen under the aegis of Alfred Hitchcock (Notorious). Its cinematization, however, depends not so much on any overt attacks on its staginess and talkiness as on the simple imposition of 3-D; and not so much on any …
Puttery, ploddy character piece centered around a travelling jewelry salesman in provincial Pennsylvania ("I have relationships. These go back decades," he says in his best Willy Loman impression), who must break in his youthful replacement. There's a hopeful stretch dealing with teaching, learning, bonding, but this soon gives way to …
Sean Connery returns to action, if not quite to form, after a much-needed, one-movie hiatus from the James Bond series. Almost all of the breeding and individuality have evaporated from this series, and in their stead is a vulgar vaudeville gagsterism, homosexual gags, dumb-broad gags, Keystone Kop gags, etc. The …
Elizabeth Carroll’s name appears just below “Directed By,” when her credit should read, “Keeping Pace With a 90-Year-Old Activist, Author, and Honorable Foodie by.” Who knew the world’s foremost authority on regional Mexican cuisine was a white British lady? Diana Kennedy is a recipe catcher, traveling the backroads of Mexico, …
BioDoc on the famed Harper's Bazaar fashion editor. Best line from the trailer: "She made it okay for women to be outlandish and extraordinary." Just not, you know, fat. Close runner-up: "She dared to make everything beautiful." Just not, you know, fat people. Fashion!
It’s a martyred life for Diane (Mary Kay Place): every day is an endless succession of windshields and brief layovers with sick friends and relatives. The reason Diane pays daily, unannounced visits to her son Brian’s (Jake Lacy) apartment isn’t so much that she’s a pest — though there is …
Not the first project that Buñuel undertook in France, but the one that signalled his thorough Frenchification: more refinement, more elegance, more finesse. The Octave Mirbeau novel, which Renoir had adapted into a synthetic Hollywood production in 1946, was felt by some (perhaps predominantly Renoir partisans) to be too Buñuelian …
Robert Bresson's truly, not falsely, pious treatment of the Georges Bernanos novel about a dying village priest (the sad-faced yet childish Claude Laydu) whose parishioners don't understand him. It occupies the most advantageous position in Bresson's output, the spot where his minimalist style has already been fully refined but not …
In the darkest, dingiest photography, a stoop-shouldered oaf is followed through his week in the minutest, mundanest detail: getting out of bed, shaving, making tea, walking to the subway, riding in the subway, putting on the white smock of his Marty-like job in the meat department of a supermarket, and …
A discarded wife, after eighteen years of marriage, gets revenge and a new romance, with a made-to-order dreamboat ("I carry you in my spirit") who's almost the living embodiment of a Luther Vandross song. Everyone else, too, gets better than they deserve. A clumsy and bruising piece of audience manipulation, …
There is a kind of achievement in (graphically) depicting a sexual relationship between an adult man (Alexander Skarsgard) and his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter (Bel Powley) in a way that makes it feel neither predatory nor twisted, just oddly matter-of-fact. Whether it is a thing worth achieving is another question. The …
The live-action adaptation of Jeff Kinney’s popular series of cartoonishly illustrated “tween” books is not in diary form but is nonetheless sufficiently episodic (the “Cheese Touch” episode, the “Devil Worship Woods” episode, and so on), covering the hero’s traumatic first year in middle school, with no help from his tormenting …