Bullitt (1968)

Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life by Michael Paxton turns out to be a product of the Rand industry instead of a critical and dispassionate look at the life of the late novelist and philosopher. For anyone of critical temperament, watching it is only slightly less creepy than sitting through something called L. Ron Hubbard:…

La Vita è Bella or Life is Beautiful was directed and co-written by Roberto Benigni, who stars as Guido Orefice, a Jewish waiter in Arezzo before the war. He woos and wins his wife, Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), whom he calls la principessa — the princess — in memorably comic and romantic style and manages to…

Readers may remember my reservations about the all-but universally praised L.A. Confidential a few months ago — a film which I note continues to garner award after award from less fastidious critics. Yet, thought I, what was the point of a movie in which everybody but a couple of utterly self-absorbed heroes is basically scum?…

When the Cat’s Away (not a very adequate translation of the French Chacun Cherche Son Chat or “Everyone’s looking for his cat”), by Cédric Klapisch, is a charmingly old-fashioned kind of film, in spite of its depiction of very contemporary social realities. It offers a marvelously undimmed romanticism about Paris, and about the glamour of…

When The Very Thought of You, directed by Nick Hamm from a screenplay by Peter Morgan, was released in Britain last year, it was called Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. The American distributors must have thought that sounded somehow too suggestive, so they gave it one of those nondescript American titles, like Lost and…

Rather like Safe Men, Return to Paradise, directed by Joseph Ruben (Sleeping With the Enemy, Money Train), is worth seeing even though it has a tendency to make light of criminal behavior. In this case, the criminal behavior is drug-taking. Three American friends, Sheriff (Vince Vaughn), Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix) and Tony (David Conrad) vacation in…