Disneyfied recounting of the human-interest story (ca. 1999) about the matronly members of a Yorkshire Women's Institute who posed for a charity cheesecake calendar. An abundance of tittery comedy, but some darker tones, too, and nice plump roles for the capable Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, and others. Directed by Nigel …
A young jazz buff from Chicago arrives by bus in a California beach town to "check out the scene," and he proceeds to make a spectacle of himself by speaking in the lingo and dressing in the style indigenous to the jazz buffs of Chicago, or to the jazz buffs …
In the professional gamblers' circuit, from the Santa Anita track to the Reno casinos, Robert Altman has again selected a fortuitous stretch of terrain to survey. However, he seems unable to find much that interests or makes sense to him there, and he sweeps aside most of the gambling scene …
West Coast transplant of Plaza Suite is second-gear Neil Simon, a quartet of sketches allowing for a slew of Southern California jokes ("It's like paradise with a lobotomy") and moving progressively into lower and lower comedy. Simon is on his happiest level in the one with Maggie Smith as a …
The most cryptic credits on any movie ever. The dismissed director, Tinto Brass, is credited only with Principal Photography (not to be confused with Director of Photography), while the final Editing is attributed to an impersonal Kafkaesque entity identified as "the production." The script is proclaimed to be Adapted from …
Sensibly scaled portrait of the Greek soprano, captured well past her prime, when she was involved in a project of dubious artistic integrity, lip-syncing on film to an earlier recording of Carmen. Fanny Ardant, as dark and dramatic-looking as the real diva, conveys the appropriate amount of passion -- which …
It is not altogether easy to do such an uninteresting version of such an invincible story as the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot affair. One slight handicap here is the cast (Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero), none of whom can sing, but all of whom engage in some intense competition to exhibit the …
True story, mid-19th-century, about an upper-class Argentine debutante who runs off with a priest. After the tough-talking historical prologue, the misty soft-focus photography might be seen as ironic, but this is an interpretation harder to maintain when things get around to the remarkably smooth passion-consummation in a jouncing horse-drawn coach. …
Greta Garbo reminds you of a swan (she's all throat), and Robert Taylor reminds you of a clothes dummy (stiffly uncomplaining), in this enervated version of the Dumas fils play about a Parisian courtesan who sensuously savors every morsel of life on her way (cough) to an early demise. The …
Radley Metzger's deluxe, air-conditioned model of the durable romantic drama by Dumas fils (Metzger's second recruitment, after Carmen Baby, from the ranks of the classics), updated to the pop-art and jet-set era of sterilized, plastic, inflatable furniture and of sexual partners of similar description. Daniele Gaubert, Nino Castelnuovo.
Isabelle Adjani at the edge of madness again (edge of petulance for a long time before that). A feminist lesson in art history, giving us to understand that the gifted protégée and mistress of Auguste Rodin would have been recognized as a greater sculptor than he if only she had …
The Amateurville Horror. Gifted youths -- girls and gays, plus one "honest-to-God straight boy" -- gather together at Camp Ovation for a summer of acting, singing, dancing, and self-affirmation. You could just scream. With a cast of unknowns, not counting an as-himself cameo by Stephen Sondheim. Written and directed by …
For No One. Well, for Children's Liberationists, actually, or Children's Bootlickists and Backpattists: a summer camp without adult supervision, not counting a way-cool defrocked drama teacher (Christopher Lloyd, hammy even for him). With Jonathan Jackson; directed by Jonathan Prince.
Robert Redford's childlike sulkiness and reluctance do not add credibility to this political fairy tale about a nice quiet boy becoming an overnight big-time bigwig. Along the campaign trail, there are some peripheral amusements, but there is the sense that the filmmakers know more than they are telling us about …
Watching a gang of celebrated artistes (Brando, Burton, Matthau, Aznavour) clowning around without a wary regard for standards of any sort is not an unaffecting experience. Embarrassing, possibly, or distressing, or depressing. With Ewa Aulin; photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno; directed by Christian Marquand.