Bonnie and Clyde

Divided We Fall by Jan Hrebejk, adapting a novel by Petr Jarchovsky is a very Czech film: charming, warm-hearted, funny, humane and philosophical—a velvet revolution sort of movie. Set before, during and just after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, its characters are all humble, flawed but decent folk coping as best they can with the…

Once old men used to tell the war stories from their youth; now they tell the anti-war stories. Both should be taken with a grain of salt.

Hallaleujah, it’s a miracle! The Apostle is a (more or less) mainstream Hollywood film that neither patronizes nor trivializes nor demonizes religion. Written and directed by and starring Robert Duvall, the picture is a tour de force for Mr Duvall, who has given himself a wonderfully juicy part as the itinerant evangelist Sonny Dewey, a.k.a….

Way back in 1976, Alan Parker had the clever idea of making use of the venerable satirical form of the mock heroic and applying it to gangster movies. This he did by making, in Bugsy Malone, a basic gangster flick in which children were cast in all the roles, from tough-guy killers to hard-eyed hookers….

Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam represents yet another mile-marker in Mr Lee’s progress from interesting young filmmaker to boring commercial hack. He no longer seems to have anything to say except for the same kinds of things he says in interviews to get attention: Clarence Thomas ought to be beaten with a baseball bat, Charlton…

Pity the poor celebrity! Harried, persecuted and plotted against by paparazzi scum, is it any wonder if he takes the law into his own hands?