Between Two Worlds

Love Stinks is a nasty little film but, it might seem, something of a curiosity among recent Hollywood products in being entirely oriented toward the masculine point of view—or at least what people accustomed to the courtship rituals of late-20th century America will regard as such. For in truth, however revolting the male habit of…

Wild, Wild West, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, is one of those movies where you can reconstruct the story conference. “It’s James Bond in the Old West,” says the pitchman. “Only he’s black, you see. Will Smith would be perfect for the part. He can be a dandy, Maverick-like, and of course a ladies’ man. But…

A movie to reassure us: the Arab satellite news service al-Jazeera is hardly any more anti-American than the rest of the media

Inventing the Abbotts directed by Pat O’Connor from a story by Sue Miller is set in the 1950s and runs through the usual movie and journalistic clichés about that era as a time of “innocence.” In addition to authentic cars and clothes and appliances and TV shows (surprisingly, there is little period rock ‘n’ roll),…

If it looks as if the stock of anti-Iraq War movies is drying up, you can always re-release an old anti-Vietnam War movie and no one will know the difference

Antz directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson begins with unmistakable Woody Allen—i.e. not some animated ant named “Z”—in analysis, feeling neurotic because, as the middle child of 5 million he didn’t get a lot of attention as a child. He tells the doctor that he is intimidated by the ant work-ethic: “Everything for the…