Big Sleep, The

Perhaps the most unforgettable moment in In and Out (written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Frank Oz) comes as Joan Cusack, having just been jilted at the altar by Kevin Kline, who has picked that moment to decide that he is gay ( “Was there any other time you could have told me this?”…

The 13th Warrior, directed by John McTiernan, is a Hollywoodification of Michael Crichton’s attempt to re- imagine Beowulf in his novel, Eaters of the Dead, with the help of a 10th century Arabic account of adventures in Central Asia. It was Kipling who pioneered this sort of thing in his brilliant story, “The Knife and…

Early on in Keeping the Faith, Father Brian Finn (Edward Norton) advises his worshiping flock, most of whom appear to be worshiping him, that “faith is different from religion,” and he makes it clear which of the two he prefers. Religion is old, stuffy, rule-bound, while faith is personal—“a feeling, a hunch,” he says. I’m…

Is it the cultural and linguistic divide between Anglo and Hispanic America which makes the humor in this movie so hard for me to find, or is it just an awful movie?

An often-funny but too-bland and predictable romantic comedy that can’t find a way to live up to its potential

Once old men used to tell the war stories from their youth; now they tell the anti-war stories. Both should be taken with a grain of salt.