Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

Funny — isn’t it? — that if you believe the movies, American presidents are either moral monsters (Republicans) or the victims of moral monsters (Democrats)

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…

Central Station, a Brazilian film directed by Walter Salles, stars the marvelous Fernanda Montenegro as Dora (real name, Isadora Teixera) a retired schoolteacher who makes her living by writing letters for illiterates who stream through the main train station in Rio de Janeiro. Many of the letters she simply throws away, knowing that the hopeless…

An amusing fantasy that starts interestingly but then fizzles out

There is scarcely a cliché of the 1990s Hollywood thriller that is not to be found in Switchback, written and directed by Jeb Stuart. By now, the figure of the serial killer — so rare in nature, so common in the movies — has become such a familiar one that a filmmaker like Stuart will…

Professional wrestling is truly postmodernism in sport, which makes it surprising to me that there have not been more documentaries like Beyond the Mat, directed by Barry Blaustein. This movie, though it is rather badly organized and tries to do too much, contains some marvelous, even unforgettable footage of what life is like behind the…