Sergeant York

Don’t go to this movie if you are expecting a barrel— or even a small pitcher — of laughs.

A sharply-observed and powerful tragi-comedy set in the streets of Beijing is at least the equal of its Italian neo-realist model.

[See discussion under “My diary” entry for July 26, 2012] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Taste of Cherry by the Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami, is not for those whose idea of movie fun is explosions and shootings, yet its concerns with matters of life and death are no less exigent for that. Over the opening credits, Mr Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) is cruising in his Range Rover, peering intently at knots…

The Slums of Beverly Hills, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins is another meditation on family, this time the highly dysfunctional, motherless Abramowitz family in Southern California in 1976. The patriarch, Murray Abramowitz (Alan Arkin) is a sometime car salesman but mainly unemployed drifter who moves his family around from one cheap apartment or motel…

The language is too modern and miracles are a little bit cheesy, but the biggest miracle of all is that such a reverent treatment of the life of Christ ever got made into a movie