Bullitt (1968)

Britain may be the only country in the world where it is still possible to make movies which glorify and romanticize and sentimentalize an old-fashioned view of masculinity—and have it come off looking progressive. Last spring we had Brassed Off which traded off its romantic notions of a stag-line of Yorkshire coal-miners down t’pit or…

A brilliant and heart-breaking Iranian film that is also a superbly plotted detective story

Every few years around Christmas time, Steven Spielberg feels the need to trot out his social conscience for public examination. Four years ago it was Schindler’s List, a film designed to show how bad the Holocaust was. This year it is Amistad—the story of a slave rebellion aboard a Spanish ship in 1839 which created…

A romantic murder mystery out of Argentina that has a lot to recommend it

Walkabout by Nicholas Roeg has joined the ever lengthening list of film classics on re-release this spring, like the Star Wars triology, the Godfather, Das Boot (in a new version), Pink Flamingos and even The Big Sleep. More than any of these others — more even than Star Wars (nothing dates like futurism) — Walkabout…

Tim Burton’s addiction to the fantastical is not improved by its encounter with the Southern Gothic. This one is only for incorrigible Burtonophiles.