Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

Everything that is important in Girl, Interrupted, directed by James Mangold and based on the memoir by Suzanna Kaysen, can be condensed into one comment by the mental institution attendant, Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg) as she attempts to give the reluctant Suzanna (Winona Ryder) a bath. “This place is a f****** fascist torture chamber,” says the…

A thrilling, true-life account of American heroism in Afghanistan in 2005 and an end-around Hollywood’s leftist politics

This not-very-funny comedy does at least hold some interest as a parable of black upward mobility.

Pi, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is another chapter in the popular culture’s love affair with flashy intelligence—or at least the image of it. A gritty, black-and-white, low-budget version of Good Will Hunting, it does no better a job, however, at making such intelligence look real. For in addition to the usual mathematical parlor-tricks, this particular…

The Diary of a Seducer, by Dani le Dubroux, is a clever little movie based loosely on Kierkegaard’s Diary of a Seducer. The diary in this case exists in two forms. One is as a French translation of Kierkegaard which Grégoire (Melvil Poupaud), a young philosophy student who lives with his crazy grandmother, Diane, a…

Hollywood has been insulting adult intelligence for years, but this movie is an insult even to teenage intelligence.