Sergeant York

The Contender, written and directed by Rod Lurie, is yet another example of Hollywood’s idea of politics and even more bizarrely disconnected from reality than the director’s last outing, the appalling Deterrence which I reviewed in this space a few months ago. The film’s multiple absurdities and implausibilities would take too long to spell out…

“Age is unnecessary,” as King Lear ruefully noticed, though there is more than one way of disposing of it

Well, here goes. The following, I know, is an invitation to hate-mail, but I have to say that Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, written and directed by George Lucas, demonstrates a remarkable paucity of imagination. The thought first came to me in the scene where Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) explains to Queen Amidala…

The best line in Random Hearts, adapted from the novel by Warren Adler by Kurt Luedtke and directed by Sydney Pollack, comes when the frail-looking but impossibly beautiful novice congresswoman, Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott-Thomas) tries to get tough with the tough old cop, “Dutch” Van Den Broeck (Harrison Ford), from the District of Columbia Police…

A sort of post-modern tragedy — if that’s not a contradiction in terms — that is too faithful to the novel but will probably win lots of Oscars for it

Yet another showcase of British acting talent turns out to be pretty good as a movie too.