Annie Hall

An absorbing if not-very-happy study of happiness — and unhappiness — among the English middle classes

Amazon, the IMAX film now being shown at the Museum of Natural History in New York, begins with scenes from an old black and white movie of pith-helmeted explorers fighting everything from vicious natives with poison-dart blowguns, to crocodiles to piranha. The picture is a tiny keyhole in the middle of the screen. Then up…

The X-Files, directed by Rob Bowman (no relation) and written by the series’s creator, Chris Carter, gives us an example of the perfect post-modern movie, because it presents to us a non-functional conspiracy. That is to say, the conspiracy is detached from its objective, or else the objective is so obscure that it remains unclear…

Addicted to Love, written by Robert Gordon and directed by Griffin Dunne has its moments of humor but it never really seems to understand the seriousness of the issue it is playing with. This is the issue of revenge. Maggie (Meg Ryan) has been dumped by Anton (Tcheky Karyo), who has since moved on to…

Perhaps the most unforgettable moment in In and Out (written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Frank Oz) comes as Joan Cusack, having just been jilted at the altar by Kevin Kline, who has picked that moment to decide that he is gay ( “Was there any other time you could have told me this?”…

Waiting for Guffman is the cheapest of cheap comedy. All it takes is our suspension of disbelief (easy in New York and L.A.) that the rubes in fly-over country could be as witless and unhip as they are presented as being here. Hip is our new class marker: snobbery on the basis of race or…