Amazing Grace

[See discussion under “My Diary” for July 2nd, 2014] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Going All the Way, directed by Mark Pellington, to a screenplay adapted by Dan Wakefield from his own novel is yet another among the plethora of recent cinematic evocations of the 1950s—and one which, I would have thought, might have elicited one or two protests from women because of the way that it treats them…

The movie itself is at best routine, but it is interesting to watch the rather un-p.c. reactions of the audience

Happiness, written and directed by Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Doll’s House), is a sort of twin of Neil Labute’s Your Friends and Neighbors. Both these young, independent filmmakers are reacting against Hollywood fakery and sentimentality by presenting us with horrifyingly funny looks at the sexual manners and mores of late-century America. What Jason Patric’s…

Tumbleweeds, in spite of a superficial similarity to Anywhere But Here and a virtuoso performance by Janet McTeer in the principal role, is a much more propagandistic and (therefore) much less interesting film than the Susan Sarandon/Natalie Portman two-hander. It is true that Ms McTeer, who became an instant celebrity three years ago when she…

Sunshine, directed and co-written by the Hungarian Istvan Szabo but with an entirely English-speaking cast, is a superbly well-crafted film that manages, unlike so many of its elephantine brethren these days, to keep our attention riveted throughout its three-hour length. For what it is, it could hardly be better, but what-it-is is family- saga soap…