Matter of Life and Death, A (Stairway to Heaven)

An amusing but slight adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel which can laugh at its characters without precluding the possibility that they may laugh at themselves

One must naturally applaud the highly moral purpose of a movie like Boiler Room, written and directed by Ben Younger. Out of appreciation for it, one can almost ignore the rap music and the suffocating hipness and, with them, the suspicion that like its model, Wall Street, the film really glorifies what it ostensibly disapproves…

You have to start watching right at the beginning of La Cérémonie, Claude Chabrol’s latest addition to one of the oddest and most compelling bodies of cinematic work in the world. Why does the maid, Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire), answer the questions of her would-be employer, Catherine Lelièvre (Jacqueline Bisset) in that odd way? Why is…

They just don’t make cads the way they used to

A beautiful if harrowing film about a clash between medieval and modern in which neither looks much like a winner

[See “Entry from August 08, 2007” under “My Diary”] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe