Fistful of Dollars

Portrait of a Lady by Jane Campion has a very strange beginning. A bunch of contemporary girls, photographed in black and white and grainy stills, as if they were the fading memories, talk about love and men and kissing and “relationships” and marriage over opening credits until one holds out her hand and we see…

Absolute Power is a typical product of the Clint Eastwood line of knock-off existentialist heroes: a vehicle, that is, for yet another mythologization of the high-plains-drifter/man-with-no-name anti-hero whom neither old Clint nor his devoted audience ever seems to get tired of. I got tired of it myself a long time ago, so I should probably…

A poor evocation of the Cold War, this movie redeems itself with a portrayal of men doing their best to cope with a colossal military screw-up.

La Desenchantée by Benoit Jacquot stars the stunning young actress, Judith Godrèche, as Beth, a supposedly down on her luck teenager who, far more rapidly than most teenagers (especially teenagers who look like this) is shorn of her illusions as a sheep in the springtime is shorn of its wool. I am suspicious of a…

Kevin Kline’s Mr Hundert is a (slightly) updated version of Mr Chips, and yet he seems to have missed his calling. He was meant to be Regis Philbin.