Heaven Can Wait

Sensitive writers rendered dysfunctional by their dysfunctional families — hm, where have we heard something like that before?

The Dreamlife of Angels (in French La Vie Revée des Anges) by Érick Zonca is by far the best picture I have seen this year and one of the best I have ever seen. I can’t remember the last time I came staggering out of a movie, as I did out of this one, literally…

Shall We Dance? by Masayuki Suo is a Japanese film with all the charm and delicacy of the best French movies. It surprises and delights with the subtlety of its observation and the skill of its construction, and it moved me deeply at several points. Koji Yakusyo stars as Mr Sugiyama, a rumpled and tired-…

Jackie Chan’s First Strike, directed by Stanley Tong, is another example of the only kind of action film I seem to get any enjoyment out of anymore. Most of them are so artificial and unbelievable: special effects overwhelming the human element. But the remarkable Jackie Chan does action at the human level. This he gets…

Music of the Heart is certainly heartwarming, though you may be inclined to object, as I do, to having your heart warmed by an emotional blast-furnace. The first non-horror flick by its director, Wes Craven, the film is, not surprisingly, altogether too fond of the cheap emotional effect and is constantly taking the easy routes…

Robert Zemeckis’s Forrest Gump is one of those precious, self- conscious films that tries so hard to be heart-warming that it ultimately gives you heartburn. Candide, or perhaps Huckleberry Finn, meets Woody Allen’s Zelig in the title character, and it makes for a disconcerting mix. But this is not really a satire, as you might…