Fargo

A disappointing and frankly implausible romance whose author doesn’t seem to have his heart in it

You knew that Mulan, the latest extrusion from the Satanic Mills of the Disney animation shop, had reached its intended audience when you saw the headline of Janet Maslin’s review in the New York Times: “A Warrior, She Takes on Huns and Stereotypes.” Someone ought to do a study on what it is that makes…

I confess. When I was a callow youth—even, let it be said, a moony adolescent, I occasionally had fantasies like that which lies behind and beneath Notting Hill. I guess I always knew that neither Sophia Loren nor Elizabeth Taylor could ever be mine—not because they were superstars or married to other people but because…

A great fan of Taste of Cherry, the last film by the Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami, I went to his newest, The Wind Will Carry Us with high hopes. I was not disappointed. It is an even better, more engaging and interesting, work than the other, but is recognizably by the same man. In particular,…

An occasionally amusing parable of guilt and forgiveness whose setting in small-town America, like the prejudices of its author, does it no favors

Martin Scorsese’s reverent Kundun proves the occasion for reminding us of a curious fact about Hollywood—namely that Buddhism is the only religion which Tinseltown treats with respect, let alone reverence. If I were a Buddhist, this would worry me. What is it that is wrong with this religion that a bunch of shallow, ignorant, self-important…