Sergeant York

The ultimate in Civil War re-enactments is, alas, much less successful as a movie.

Good Will Hunting by Gus Van Sant is, like Kicked in the Head, an illustration of what happens when you hand beardless boys $20 million dollars or so and say, “Go make a movie, kid.” Good Will is better than Kicked, but then anything this side of Flubber is better than Kicked. The boys in…

Niagara Niagara directed by Bob Gosse, is what we might call a sick flick which reproduces in its title the “echolalia” or weird repetitions and irrational tics incident to sufferers of Tourette’s Syndrome. The sufferer in this case is a young woman called Marcy (Robin Tunney) from a wealthy but uncaring family who meets (while…

A portrait of modern sanctity which — very oddly, in my view — asks not to be taken too seriously

Shall We Dance? by Masayuki Suo is a Japanese film with all the charm and delicacy of the best French movies. It surprises and delights with the subtlety of its observation and the skill of its construction, and it moved me deeply at several points. Koji Yakusyo stars as Mr Sugiyama, a rumpled and tired-…

Citizen Ruth by Alexander Payne is not so good a movie as it ought to be, given its materials and the good idea of its conception (you should pardon the term). Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern) is a feckless dopehead living on the margins of lower middle class Omaha. The film begins with a scene of…