But first the doubt, the ridicule, the intrigue, the sabotage, the mutiny, the head on the chopping block. And afterwards the sunken ship, the enslavement, the patricide, the storm at sea, the mortal illness. And always, always, the tedium, the monotony, the dullness, the grim determination to take Christopher Columbus …
The summer is that of 1960; the place is Paris. In this environment, Jean Rouch, the ethnographer and documentarist who has devoted most of his professional life to Africa, has less to offer, less to do in the way of cultural mediation. He still has his cinéma-verité technique, however, and …
The follow-up to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or as we could call it, The Lion, the Witch, No Wardrobe, maintains the medium-high standard of its forerunner, higher, that is, than the standards of such close-by epic cycles as the Lord of the Rings series and the Harry …
The mythic children's book by C.S.Lewis makes for a good children's film, better, to pick a couple of nearby co-ordinates, than any of the Harry Potters, better than any third of The Lord of the Rings, albeit still rather longish at two hours and twenty minutes. In the first place, …
The marble-eyed dragonslayer of Pitch Black -- a decent little movie, four years previous -- is enlisted, over his grumbled protests ("I just wanted to be left alone"), to face a bigger challenge: the planet-by-planet blitzkrieg of the Necromongers, otherwise known as the World-Enders, who want to bring everyone, everywhere, …
Boyhood best friends, one of whom has moved away and grown up to become a hot-shot music executive in L.A., while the other has stayed a child in every respect but inches. The problem: he still wants to be best friends. A glimmer of an idea, there. But the heart …
A Wong Kar-wai film made during a lull in the production of his far more ambitious Ashes of Time. The imitation-Godard (early-Godard) shooting style -- off-the-cuff, on-the-run -- scares up plenty of local atmosphere (cluttered, clattering Hong Kong) and plenty of individual idiosyncrasy: the whirling-dervish dance of a fast-food vendor …
Korean folk tale of the 18th Century, concerning the governor's son and the courtesan's daughter: "Our enemy is not a person. The enemy is the class that divides us." The illustrational imagery is prettily lit in tones of peach, apricot, salmon. But the imagery is routinely dominated, overriden, trampled down, …
The late Edie Sedgwick, ex-Warhol "superstar," in a role modelled on her own life. The film was shot, off and on, over five years (before completion, the leading lady died), and it looks that way, as if the idea of what the film was about changed several times, and as …
Lina Wertmuller returns from oblivion, not with a vengeance, but with a peace overture: a make-nice comedy about a meeting of the minds in a third-grade classroom in an impoverished village in Southern Italy. Filmed predominantly in chin-chucking closeups. With Paolo Villaggio.
Simple-minded history lesson given an impressively stately, weighty presentation. Director Anthony Mann builds the movie as solid as a Medieval castle (and builds it in Spain, where it properly belongs). Charlton Heston, as sculptural an actor as ever walked the screen, has his most stirring moments after his character is …
Lasse Hallstrom's treatment of the John Irving Bildungsroman of the same name: a Second World War period piece centered around one Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire), an abused orphan -- "twice adopted, twice returned" -- and the chosen understudy to the kindly doctor and backdoor abortionist (Michael Caine) who runs the …
The Disney version (of the Charles Perrault fairy tale), with too many teaspoons of sugar — too many chittering mice, to be more specific, and no respectable villain (the wicked stepmother with the Bride-of-Frankenstein hairstyle won't quite do, much less the literal fat cat with the green-and-yellow eyes). The shredding …
The story of heavyweight boxer James J. Braddock, the Bulldog of Bergen, the Pride of New Jersey, a working-class hero for real. It's something of a puzzle why his story had not been told on screen before, seeing as how we have it on the authority of Damon Runyon, who …
Laborious reworking of the staple fairy tale in the San Fernando Valley: the high-school football star (Chad Michael Murray, so sensitive that his forehead never smooths out) can't recognize his copiously blond classmate (Hilary Duff) at the Halloween costume party, even though she's hidden behind a mask no bigger than …