Heaven Can Wait

A mildly amusing exercise in progressive nostalgia that has been much overpraised

Hav Plenty by Christopher Cherot is a young man’s film about love and success in the black middle class and as such, I suppose, is to be applauded merely for existing. At least it is a welcome break from those tiresome boyz in the hood and other forms of playing up to black stereotypes. But…

Another exercise in politically progressive moral earnestness by John Sayles sinks under its own weight of good intentions.

Gang Related, written and directed by Jim Kouf, is better than it sounds. Given that it is yet another crooked cop caper and that it features the late Tupac Shakur in over his head as one of the two bent patrolmen, it actually manages to be watchable through the sheer strength of Kouf’s writing and…

Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life by Michael Paxton turns out to be a product of the Rand industry instead of a critical and dispassionate look at the life of the late novelist and philosopher. For anyone of critical temperament, watching it is only slightly less creepy than sitting through something called L. Ron Hubbard:…

It was an interesting experience to go to see Kevin Spacey’s Albino Alligator with Jackie Chan’s First Strike fresh in my mind. The two films stand at opposite poles: the one delightfully fresh and uncomplicated and entirely based on its swift, non-stop movement and the other slow and lugubrious and full of portentous dialogue and…