Hurt Locker, The (2008)

Corny and over-the-top as Hollywood’s celebrations of the virtues of rural life as compared to urban used to be, at least the filmmakers usually gave the impression of believing in it.

In spite of the exertions of a talented cast, it is very hard to warm up to a musical whose view of the human condition is so unremittingly bleak.

Small Soldiers, directed by Joe Dante, is typical of Hollywood attitudes towards military values and military people. Even the grief of soldiers for their dead comrades in arms is made fun of as the leader of the toy soldiers brought to life by computer wizardry pronounces over one of his men that: “Nick Nitro’s battery…

Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, directed by Joan Chen stars the beautiful young actress Lu Lu as the title character, a girl living with her happy family in Chengdu during the Chinese Cultural Revolution who is ordered, along with eight million other teenagers from the cities during the years 1966-76, to “go down” into…

What looks like an attempt at satire has lost, or never found, that edge of hatred that good satire needs

If the administration really wants to suppress the latest adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel, it can hardly be because of its closeness to reality. Perhaps it is just good taste.