Philadelphia Story, The

How Stella Got Her Groove Back, directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan from a screenplay by Terry McMillan and Ron Bass from Miss McMillan’s novel, is a middle-aged woman’s wish-fulfilment fantasy and, unfortunately, little else. I thought at least it might be amusingly bad, but it doesn’t even reach as high as that. Angela Bassett stars…

Steve Martin makes the mistake of over-estimating his own talents in taking on a role made famous by Peter Sellers

Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, directed by Jay Roach from a screenplay by Mike Myers, stars Myers as one of those swinging secret agents from the 1960s—though he is supposed to be British he resembles Matt Helm more than James Bond—frozen for 30 years and reanimated, along with his mod get-up, his bad teeth…

In The Pledge Sean Penn (director) and Jack Nicholson (star) have teamed up to give us a portrait of the hero as “a drunk and a clown” — which has a certain appropriateness, I suppose. There’s even a part for Mickey Rourke here — to say nothing of cameo roles for such actors as Tom…

Jesus’ Son [sic] adapted from a stories by Denis Johnson and directed by Alison Maclean represents a revivification of a kind of pretentiousness that had its heyday in the 1960s and was associated with that era’s conceit that hippies, drug-users and drop-outs of all descriptions were a higher order of spiritual being—more like Jesus himself,…

Yet another showcase of British acting talent turns out to be pretty good as a movie too.