Act of Valor

It is not a particularly original or even, necessarily, interesting observation that marriage, like other symbiotic relationships, is often a matter of complementary pathologies. Or what would be pathologies if they were found in an individual. Benoit Jacquot (A Single Girl, The Disenchanted) has given us a portrait of such a marriage—and not much hope…

Hilary and Jackie, directed by Anand Tucker from a screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce and based on the memoir A Genius In the Family by Hilary and Piers du Pré is a guilty pleasure. It is a pleasure because it is marvelously written, acted and directed, but it is a guilty one because a lot…

There is a scene in October Sky, directed by Joe Johnston, when the four “Rocket Boys” from Coalwood, West Virginia., inspired by the sight of Sputnik streaking through the night sky, are setting off one of their rockets. On a sylvan road beside the launch site there appears an original, 1958 Corvette convertible in red…

All Hollywood agrees that anytime someone makes a movie about TV or the media culture it is ipso facto a serious picture. And a picture — like, for instance, Natural Born Killers — which hasn’t a serious bone in its body can be instantly transformed into a serious picture by the addition of a “satirical”…

An immensely moving account of goodness, holiness and Christian martyrdom — remember that? — amid a political landscape much like our own

As an example of postmodern movie-making, the beginning of Swordfish, written by Skip Woods and directed by Dominic Sena, takes a lot of beating. John Travolta looking like the middle-aged dandy of which he has made rather a speciality since Pulp Fiction, is shown in tight close-up in the role of movie critic. “You know…