Peter Murmann

A few months ago I read a story about the director Wes Anderson in the New Yorker. Anderson was hailed as an innovative filmmaker with a peculiar style. I had seen his The Royal Tenenbaums  when it came out and found the film different but not particularly compelling. It struck me as trying to take [Read More]

If we don’t meet or if we lose the one person we are meant to be with, then our life is not worth living. Everything becomes meaningless. This is the key premise of the film. It is wrong. But if you suspend your critical faculties and assume this idea is correct for the duration [Read More]

When you visit Tombstone, Arizona, you will be struck by how small the town is yet how big a role it plays in the mythical version of American history. My Darling Clementine is the third movie I have seen about Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the gunfight at the OK Corral (Tombstone, 1993, & Wyatt [Read More]

Vincent suffers from Tourette’s syndrome, “an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by multiple physical (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic” (Wikipedia). When his mother dies, his father, a politician in Bavaria, sticks him into an institution of people with mental problems so that his tic gets cured. Now [Read More]

Four films: two good, two bad. Family Wedding, which chronicles the challenges of marrying across cultural and racial boundaries, had great comic potential but delivered a lame treatment of the subject. Youth in Revolt is the opposite: a film about love that is poetic and deep. Two thumbs up. Arthur, mixing animation with human being [Read More]

We all roughly know what happened in the case of United 93. It was the fourth plane that was hijacked on September 11, 2001, to hit a high profile target. In this case, it was not the World Trade Center or the Pentagon but possibly the White House or the Capitol Building.  If the Presidential [Read More]

I will always remember Easter 2010 as the Crazy Heart weekend. Aside from Avatar a few weeks ago, this is my favorite film in a long time. I knew before walking into the cinema that the film followed at country singer who had seen better days. Critics also raved about Jeff Bridges performance. Yes, his [Read More]

Guy Richie took some liberties in wooing young audiences to see his version of Sherlock Holmes. The historical—but let us not forget fictional—19th century character invented by the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is quite meticulous with his personal hygiene and does not seem to have any constitutional interest in the opposite sex. Richie’s Sherlock [Read More]

A few years ago I was staying for a night in a motel in the vicinity of the Washington airport. Breakfast included. USA Today placed before my door as is customary for this kind of American establishment.  I read this snapshot of American life at the breakfast table. Next to me sits a man in [Read More]

What is a perfect night at the movies? A splendid dinner before! Short ticket lines! Then a surprisingly deep film with George Clooney in the lead! The words “deep” and “George Clooney” typically don’t go hand in hand. But a strong novel by Walter Kirn and a director (Jason Reitman) who can bring into [Read More]