Place in the Sun, A

Surprisingly, U-Turn by Oliver Stone is actually a rather enjoyable evening in the cinema, or it would be if it weren’t marred by the patented Stone phantasmagoric style. Dealing with a whimsical script like this one (by John Ridley, adapted from his book “Stray Dogs”) is something Stone should never allow himself to do, because…

Touch by Paul Schrader, based on a twenty year old novel by Elmore Leonard, has an appealing premiss but with no idea of what to do with it. The premiss is that a young former Franciscan calling himself Juvenal (Skeet Ulrich), but whose real name is Charles Lawson, returns from a missionary calling in the…

A sharply-observed and powerful tragi-comedy set in the streets of Beijing is at least the equal of its Italian neo-realist model.

Ready to Rumble, directed by Brian Robbins and written by Steven Brill, might have been called “Dumb and Dumber Go to the Mat.” Its ostensible look behind the scenes at professional wrestling could have followed the trail blazed by the excellent Beyond the Mat, reviewed here last month. Instead the movie settles for repeated attempts…

A couple of months ago I picked Stigmata the front-runner in the Worst-Movie-of-the Year Stakes, but Kevin Smith’s disastrously awful Dogma has now blown by it in the stretch and is cantering towards the finish several lengths ahead of the field. Since his promising debut with Clerks (1994), Smith has been going steadily downhill in…

If you are a Buddhist or very fond of soccer—or possibly one of the yuppie aristocracy who are both—then The Cup is for you. Even I, who have very little time for either Buddhism or soccer, found it completely charming. Written and directed by Khyentse Norbu, it tells the story of a Buddhist monastery in…