Christmas in July

La Desenchantée by Benoit Jacquot stars the stunning young actress, Judith Godrèche, as Beth, a supposedly down on her luck teenager who, far more rapidly than most teenagers (especially teenagers who look like this) is shorn of her illusions as a sheep in the springtime is shorn of its wool. I am suspicious of a…

Ma Vie en Rose by Alain Berliner manages to be a charming film, rather in the manner of the upbeat and jokey postmodernism of Berliner’s fellow Belgian, Jaco Van Dormael. Enjoyable as it is in many ways, however, one can never quite lose the sense of being got at by—that rare thing—a perfectly amiable propagandist…

An over-long mess of a film that tries to do way too much but is always enjoyable to watch

The former satirist Morgan Spurlock makes the mistake of taking on a subject to which he is more sympathetic than he is to McDonald’s, the Bush administration or product placement

Orgazmo, written and directed by and starring Trey Parker, exploits the essential comedy in sex by bringing together the adult film industry and Mormonism — an unpromising combination, you might think, though the premiss is good for a few laughs before it sputters out about half way through. Parker plays Joe Young, a Mormon missionary…

Slamnation by Paul Devlin is a ridiculous if not often comical documentary about the growing fashion of the “poetry slam” — a kind of competitive sport involving mostly execrable poetry and the little clique of neurotics and borderline exhibitionists who write it for performance before vast arenas of enthusiasts. The film tells the story of…