Searchers, The

Like the unsuccessfully arty Deceiver, the unashamedly popular Desperate Measures by Barbet Schroeder is a film which begins by telling us the IQ—“over 150”—of its criminal protagonist, Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton). Oh dear. Once again we are in the presence of one of those criminal geniuses who are so seldom to be met with in…

Like the earlier films by Nicole Holofcener this is witty and amusing and offers much for our enjoyment but, also like them, it evinces a feminism that can be slightly didactic

Down to Earth, Chris Rock’s remake (directed by Chris and Paul Weitz) of Heaven Can Wait (1978)—itself a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)—is a disappointment. Though there are some very funny things in it, its glib message about being oneself turns out to be a cover for being self-indulgent, in the style (I’m…

The mythology of the Vietnam War is as fixed and immutable as that of the Trojan War, at least so far as the Hollywood left are concerned. Will flattering them get Michael Caine an Oscar?

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…

Star Maps, written and directed by Miguel Arteta, tells the story of Carlos (Douglas Spain) who comes from his grandparents’ house in Mexico, much against his mother’s wishes, to live with the rest of his family in Los Angeles: his father, Pepe (Efraim Figueroa), his mother, Theresa (Martha Velez), his sister, Maria (Lysa Flores) and…