Shop Around the Corner, The

Costa-Gavras — with the help of Rolf Hochhuth — delivers a stinging indictment of the Catholic church’s part in the Holocaust. You were expecting, maybe, exoneration?

Conspiracy Theory, written by Brian Helgeland and directed by Richard Donner, attempts to do for lunatics what movies like The Shawshank Redemption tried to do for convicts—that is to sanitize them and make them lovable victims of government and society instead of dangerous social malcontents. Charming, blue-eyed Mel Gibson plays Jerry, a middle aged New…

Titus, written and directed by Julie Taymore, is a revelation. Like most students of Shakespeare, I had always thought Titus Andronicus the weakest of his plays, its Grand Guignol effects obviously the fruits of an apprentice hand. I think so still. But it took Miss Taymore to show us that even Shakespeare’s prentice work was…

A gripping and well-made Italian film that never quite gets around to answering the biggest of the questions it raises

Yet another moral tale to illustrate how much is to be deplored by all right-thinking people the “cycle of violence”

I tried very hard to like Loser, the latest from Amy Heckerling of Clueless fame. And, indeed, there is much to like about it. Its hero, Paul Tannek (Jason Biggs) is a poor but likeable guy from a poor but likeable rural family who goes to college in the big city (a thinly disguised New…