Postman Always Rings Twice, The

Movie illnesses used to be the kind of thing that beautiful young women contracted. The silent killer was sure in its work, but it always left them looking in the pink when they finally breathed their last. They were still beautiful, but now also charged with pathos. Looking on them you might says, as Romeo…

Did you know that gossip can be vicious and destructive—especially when false rumors are deliberately planted by idle and amoral youths just to see what happens? No? Then Gossip, directed by Davis Guggenheim and written by Gregory Poirier, is definitely the movie for you. Even if you did know these things but have a glossy-magazine…

Boogie Nights has been hailed in advance as a contemporary classic and its director, Paul Thomas Anderson, as the new Tarantino. Well, maybe. But where I could see in Pulp Fiction and others of Mr Tarantino’s early works what all the fuss was about, even if I was a bit skeptical, in the case of…

Clay Pigeons, directed by David Dobkin and written by Matt Healy purports to take place in Montana, though in fact it takes place in Movieland, or that province of it which has been colonized by Quentin Tarantino and all the Taranteenies. You know you are in this part of the world when everyone you meet…

In The Memory of a Killer, also known as The Alzheimer Case (De Zaak Alzheimer), Erik Van Looy has done a nice job of putting together an engaging, high-concept thriller. But once we’ve finished being caught up in it, we can’t help noticing that the high-concept pretty much goes to waste. It is this. A…

In Les Misérables, directed by Bille August, it is the film itself which turns out to be misérable: thin and poor and wretched and in need of feeding up. The one thing you don’t want to skimp on when you are filming an epic is the epic proportions. August, a fine director of intense and…