Jonathan Demme's ill-advised remake. The main point to be made about the 1962 original is that, with its historical co-ordinates of McCarthyism, the Cold War, and the Yellow Peril, it dates rather badly, and thus cries out for a major overhaul. But while the John Frankenheimer version — positing a …
Sinatra paints an attractively washed-out portrait of a U.S. intelligence officer (a.k.a. "stupidity officer," in a line that tickled Dwight Macdonald). His fatigue and jitters seem an appropriate reaction to, and comment on, the task of propping up a delirious political thriller composed of tight-skinned, glassy-eyed zombies (Laurence Harvey, Henry …
Man-vs.-bureaucracy parable, to do with a black African's dizzy chase to cash a money order. The humble, humanistic, De Sica-ish pathos (the actor gets some rich comic effects out of his arm-flapping efforts to find comfort in his roomy, bright-colored robes) is partially spoiled by the clamorous Leftist moralizing at …
Arjun finds trouble when his rocket scientist girlfriend is abducted by what he thinks is a UFO. He has only the help of a retired investigative journalist to solve the mystery and find his girlfriend. Directed by: Ajay Sarpeshkar, starring Anant Nag, Prakash Belawadi, Sharmiela Mandre, Samyukta Hornad, and Kiran …
Idris Elba stars as the late, beloved South African leader, who was not always so beloved.
It's a sharp drop from Tara to Falconhurst. For all that's shown of the interior, two-thirds of this Southern mansion might be boarded up and collecting dust, although the central staircase serves just as well to snuff out an unborn child if the expectant mother descends it head over heels. …
Three intersecting plot threads barely hang together in this soldier’s story of a Marine who brings the war in Afghanistan home with him. The basic training and combat footage are strictly standard issue, ditto the reverse-angle grilling military counselor Gary Oldman gives returning vet, Shia LaBeouf. (Lucky Oldman never leaves …
Robert Bresson's spiritualistic prison-escape movie is based on the actual experience of a French Resistance fighter captured by the Nazis, and is shot in the actual setting. You do not get to see much of this place, however, in Bresson's bowed-headed camerawork. What you see best is the hero's hands …
Solemnly religiose science fiction, about a "cybernetic Christ" with a Tony Perkins (as Norman Bates) haircut, who checks himself into a lunatic asylum, claims to come from outer space, plays Bach on the organ, says things like "You are all robots, you just haven't realized it yet," and completely confounds …
Heavy robes, stone palaces, esteemed actors, and melodious voices — all in the service of some facile debates on the subject of justice and personal integrity. Paul Scofield is a too saintly Thomas More, Robert Shaw is a too noisy Henry VIII, and the issue is too settled to stir …
Defoe's classic, Robinson Crusoe, as told by Friday to a congregation of his tribesmen, fashionably attired in macramé belts and headdresses. Q white-man's-guilt movie -- and in the clash of cultures, black against white, the white man agrees to take a dive. Western Civilization is represented by pre-Age-of-Enlightenment colonialist-Christian dogma, …
Slow-to-develop, yet not carefully or credibly developed, Faustian tale of a struggling writer whose financial straits impel him to moonlight as a male escort, and then as a collaborator with a dying Pulitzer Prize winner, rewriting the old lion's historical novel on Roman slaves into a topical piece on California …