Breach

The Best Man, written and directed (in Italian) by Pupi Avati begins by solemnly informing us that “Once upon a time, women would marry not knowing what love was. . .” And lest you think, in a moment of nervousness, that you might not know what it is either, the film hastens to explain that…

Let’s stipulate that teenage sexual energy and the sorts of things it drives the young’uns to get up to are inherently funny subjects. Shakespeare has the grumbling old shepherd in The Winter’s Tale say: “I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is…

As in last year’s Run, Lola, Run, which was actually made later, the German director Tom Tykwer shows in Winter Sleepers his fascination with time and chance, with the momentous consequences of quite trivial causes — and his sense of style. But this film is less laden with cinematic trickery and self-conscious cleverness than Lola…

Another cartoon hero of the silver screen appeals to adults who no longer feel any shame about enjoying kids’ movies — and so comes closer to making kids’ movies the only kind there are

The problem isn’t that a 40-year-old woman seduces a 15-year-old boy, it’s that the seduction is not even considered morally problematical.

Dark City by Alex Proyas is another example of the triumph of image over drama which has made postmodern movies what they are and, I believe, will someday be seen to have devastated the capacity of Hollywood to produce quality films. For drama, that is, there must be rules. Some things can happen and some…