My Man Godfrey

Election was directed and co-written by Alexander Payne, the promising young director of Citizen Ruth. Once again, he shows that he has real talent in this often hilarious tale of life at George Washington Carver High in Omaha. Like that other recent success, Rushmore, the film looks at high school as something of a metaphor…

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…

Woody Allen’s decline into self-parody accelerates

So let me get this straight. The sleazy boyfriend (Viggo Mortensen) of the stunning sex- goddess Gwyneth Paltrow, an unhappy wife with a hundred million dollars in her butter-and- egg jar, is going to use this desperate woman — as he has used many desperate and lonely women before — to make half a million…

Well, it’s a good subject and a great star. The Venus Beauty Institute is a French film written and directed by Tonie Marshall which explores the female fear of commitment. Everybody knows about the male fear of same, but the female version is much more interesting. Nor to her film’s credit does Ms Marshall’s feminist…

Rich and powerful Mr Hearst only wants to be loved! The story ought to be in the funny pages of a Hearst newspaper — or a movie by Orson Welles. Peter Bogdanovich’s version is a yawn.