In Which We Serve (1942)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but just in case you’ve been living in Borneo for the last 80 years you might not know that the class-ridden British army in World War One was staffed by senior officers who were idiots and junior officers who were amateurish, upper-class twits, while the ranks were…

Steve Martin makes the mistake of over-estimating his own talents in taking on a role made famous by Peter Sellers

The comic insight at the heart of Jay Roach’s Meet the Parents lies in establishing the nexus between humorlessness, paranoia and sentimentality in Robert De Niro’s portrayal of every bachelor’s nightmare of the father of his intended. The late Adolf Hitler, I believe, had the same three qualities, though this is not a comparison in…

If I should happen to mention that the music in Mon Homme by Bertrand Blier consists entirely of selections by Barry White and Henryk Gorecki, you may get some idea of what a mess the picture is. At one level, it is, as are many of Blier’s earlier films, a masculine fantasy. The heroine is…

[See “Entry from August 5, 2009” under “My Diary”] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Disney once again offers teenagers just what they want — fantasy wish-fulfilment.