Two thespian heavyweights, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, going toe to toe, battling to a draw. The scandal, as it comes to light, is the illicit and illegal affair of a married-with-children, thirty-something art teacher, Blanchett, and a fifteen-year-old male student (Andrew Simpson), a ripped-from-the-headlines affair made perfectly plausible if …
Expert piece of moviemaking, expert piece of storytelling, using gambling as a metaphorical gateway to the larger themes of chance, fate, the great unknown, religion, love, leaps of faith of all kinds. The story, from a contemporary novel by Peter Carey, follows two widely separated but converging paths in the …
Another installment in the long-running royal soap opera. Think of it as Elizabeth: The Genesis, an hysterical-historical story of court intrigue, concentrating heavily, and heavy-breathingly, on bedroom intrigue, the sibling rivalry over the affections of Henry VIII. The “other” Boleyn girl, as she is self-described in the dialogue, turns out …
The sum of The Bridge on the River Kwai plus The Big Doll House plus, possibly, Sister Act (or possibly Mr. Holland's Opus). But seeing that those last two quantities are negatives, we should more properly speak of remainder, not sum. And the remainder would itself be a minus: humanist, …
Hayao Miyazaki further postpones his announced retirement three feature films earlier, and appears to reverse the slippage of his hand-drawn purism into corner-cutting computer animation, reverting to a simpler, less congested style than in Spirited Away and even more Howl’s Moving Castle. His famous sensitivity to nature is immediately on …
Hayao Miyazaki further postpones his announced retirement three feature films earlier, and appears to reverse the slippage of his hand-drawn purism into corner-cutting computer animation, reverting to a simpler, less congested style than in Spirited Away and even more Howl’s Moving Castle. His famous sensitivity to nature is immediately on …
The ace air-traffic controller of the Newark-JFK-LaGuardia triangle goes into a tailspin after the arrival of the "interesting" new guy from Arizona, half-Indian and half-cowboy -- not to mention the new guy's very young wife, a full-lipped, full-bosomed, tattooed lush. Some well-turned gags, and some pointed scrutiny of masculine rivalry, …
The fifth collaboration between director Ridley Scott and leading man Russell Crowe (Body of Lies, American Gangster, A Good Year, Gladiator, count ’em) won’t satisfy your craving for the legend, but perhaps your craving, if any, for Dark Age dreariness, savage combat (shot in that skittery long-lens style that looks …
From the E. Annie Proulx novel about a widower named Quoyle who returns with his daughter Bunny to his Newfoundland roots, and becomes (among other things) the ace reporter on a local rag called The Gammy Bird. A tall tale, a dark tale, a droll tale, arch, sardonic, grotesque, gaudy, …
Hollywood remake of the first of Patricia Highsmith's five Ripley novels, originally made in France, under the title Purple Noon, forty years earlier. (The remake is done in period: Chet Baker and Charlie Parker are the coolest, man.) Clearly, writer-director Anthony Minghella does not owe his inspiration to a desire …
Truth is, Oscar season is upon us and Robert Redford’s banking that his portrayal of journalist Dan Rather in Truth will set him free to take home a best supporting Oscar award. Cate Blanchett is always worth watching, even when her character as Rather’s producer never rises above that of …
A "prestige" film from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the true story, slickly told, of the martyrdom of an Irish journalist who seems to be the only citizen in the country who cares about the Dublin drug trade: "Somebody's going to have to get after these bastards." Cate Blanchett struggles valiantly to …
With daughter Bee (Emma Nelson) almost grown and husband Elgie (Billy Crudup) making a name for himself in the artistic world, it’s time for lapsed architectural whiz kid Bernadette (Cate Blanchett) to shut down the sacrificing (along with the 24 hour pharmacy inside her medicine cabinet) and put her artistic …