Kinsey

Kinsey is quilt-like, stringing together scenes that are crafted with brillance and others that are poorly conceived and enacted. I wish the writer-director had spent a little more time removing the occasional second rate material from the film. What makes the movie charming is our amazement about how far western society has travelled in only image [Read More]

The Bourne Surpremacy

This is one the best action based dramas I have seen in a long time. The sequel is dramatically better than the first film in the franchise, The Bourne Identity. Call it a James Bond movie for the adult mind.  007 is not a real human being and his employer, the British secret service, image [Read More]

Sideways

Some time ago I came to the conclusion that film is the highest art form for it can combine all means of communication: words, pictures and music. It comes closest to how we actually experience life and in the hands of a competent director, movies can make you forget completely your own reality for two image [Read More]

The Notebook

  I asked the stewardess just after the plane had taken off: “Do you know what movie is going to be shown today?” “The Notebook,” she replied. “It is a chick flick, but it is really good.” The film turned out to be a love story where everything goes right. When misfortune seems to deliver image [Read More]

Fahrenheit 9/11

Anyone who expects a documentary in the style of Ken Burns will be disappointed. There is no true analysis of why almost half of the electorate still seems to supporting Bush a few days before the election.  Michael Moore has copied the methods of the Bush Whitehouse and engages in his own kind of propaganda. image [Read More]

Before Sunrise

After watching its sequel Before Sunset, I wanted to see the first part of the story. A young American (Ethan Hawke) and a young French student (Julie Delpy) meet in a train. She decides not go on to Paris as planned but step out of the train with him in Vienna and spend the image [Read More]

Before Sunset

Do not read this review before reading my review of its predecessor film “Before Sunrise.” Nine years ago two young people spent, we are told, an amazing night in Vienna togehter. To play with fortune they did not exchange phone numbers but promised each other to meet on a particular day six months later in image [Read More]

The Prince & Me

It is a regular fairy tale, but there a few clever twists. The writers located most of the action in Wisconsin. A playboy Daenisch prince discovers a farm girl who does not like dating because it could interfere with her going to medical school. She turns him into an responsible adult and is invited to image [Read More]

Last Tango in Paris

Even good acting (Marlon Brando) cannot save a script that has no depth and a director who lacks an eye for how to pick stories that are worth telling. If one is confused in one’s head (as writer or director), it does not make for good art to let confusion take over the story. The image [Read More]