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Nature documentaries have never been so gorgeous — but Jacques Perrin’s film would have been no less so with some added documentary-style touches

Britain may be the only country in the world where it is still possible to make movies which glorify and romanticize and sentimentalize an old-fashioned view of masculinity—and have it come off looking progressive. Last spring we had Brassed Off which traded off its romantic notions of a stag-line of Yorkshire coal-miners down t’pit or…

The Harmonists, directed by Joseph Vilsmaier, is the “based-on-a-true story” story of The Comedian Harmonists, an immensely popular singing group in pre-war Germany that eventually had to break up, as three of its six members were Jewish. Like nearly every other film set in its time and place, this one is ultimately sucked into the…

Like most Hollywood attempts at satire, Dick, directed by Andrew Fleming, falls into the fatal trap of becoming too cozy with the object of its satirical attentions. This is a pity because there are many good and funny things in it. It would have been a great movie if it could have kept its focus…

And you thought they didn’t make them like this anymore! Twilight, directed and co-written by Robert Benton is what every fourth or fifth movie out of Hollywood these days tries and fails to be — that is, an old fashioned noir thriller. I hope that people will be able to tell that, compared to the…

[See “Entry from August 4, 2010” under “My Diary”] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe