Between Two Worlds

Happiness, written and directed by Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Doll’s House), is a sort of twin of Neil Labute’s Your Friends and Neighbors. Both these young, independent filmmakers are reacting against Hollywood fakery and sentimentality by presenting us with horrifyingly funny looks at the sexual manners and mores of late-century America. What Jason Patric’s…

Kids whose only knowledge of World War II comes from the movies will be relieved to learn it was a struggle between the plucky pigeons of Britain and the fearsome falcons of the Third Reich

Beloved, from the novel by Toni Morrison and directed by Jonathan Demme, exploits the sufferings of black people under slavery on behalf of a radical feminism that is merely parasitical upon them. Blacks in general and black men in particular ought to resent having their own history hijacked in this way, and used in the…

A portrait of spiritual and emotional emptiness among the academic classes — that may or may not be spiritually and emotionally empty itself

There is a moment in What’s the Worst that Could Happen? where the movie almost seems to live up to the promise of its title. This comes when Max Fairbanks (Danny DeVito), a nasty and insufferable billionaire, attempts to justify to his wife, Lutetia (Nora Dunn) his behavior in getting involved in an increasingly destructive…

This film by Peter Hedges tries hard to be both charming and uplifting but doesn’t quite succeed in being either