Amazing Grace

Another sloppy, self-indulgent and unfunny film from Woody Allen’s seemingly interminable late period

The Horse Whisperer, directed by and starring Robert Redford, should come with a disclaimer: “Includes no actual whispering.” Or rather, there is one moment near the end when the alleged whisperer, Tom Booker (Mr Redford) does whisper to the horse: “There’s something you have to do, tomorrow, boy,” but it seems a long time to…

A form of pathography in which the audience is kept at arm’s length from the hero/heroine by the compassion he/she demands of it

The Best Man, written and directed (in Italian) by Pupi Avati begins by solemnly informing us that “Once upon a time, women would marry not knowing what love was. . .” And lest you think, in a moment of nervousness, that you might not know what it is either, the film hastens to explain that…

The best movie version of a Bible story that I have seen

Excess Baggage, directed by Marco Brambilla but under the creative control of Alicia Silverstone stars the rather pudgy Miss Silverstone as Emily Hope, a poor little rich girl, always getting into trouble, who stages her own kidnapping so that her brute of a father, who is a shady businessman in Seattle who is not overeager…