Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

The Borrowers directed by Peter Hewitt and based on novels by Mary Norton is a curious looking picture and occasionally a funny one, but for the most part it leaves us with the impression of opportunities missed. As so often in big-money Hollywood pictures, a world of artistry is lost for the sake of some…

Even raw propaganda can do the rounds of the documentary circuit, apparently, so long as it is anti-American propaganda

Mrs Dalloway is directed by Marleen Gorris, the Dutch director of the unrelentingly feminist Antonia’s Line, from a screenplay by Eileen Atkins. The screenplay, so far as I can tell, is very faithful to Virginia Woolf’s novel, so fans of Mrs Woolf may enjoy it. The rest of us may take it as Ms Gorris…

An old-fashioned sort of cop story — that is, one in which the cops are the good guys — but one told in a hip, bang up-to-date, semi-ironic style

In its native Australia, Cherie Nowlan’s Introducing the Dwights was called Clubland, and you can see how that title could have been confusing to an American — or to a British — audience. The clubs of Sydney, where the film is set, feature magicians, ventriloquists, even a guy who imitates bird-songs. In short, they are…

Lethal Weapon 4 was, according to the credits, directed by Richard Donner, but it might as well have been directed by a computer. Here is the perfect summer blockbuster movie in which the formulae perfected in the first three installments in the series are employed once again, the explosions and the hair-breadth escapes are even…