Train, The (1964)

[See “Eastwoodian Aftermaths,” The American Spectator, February, 2007 under “Articles”] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Children of the Revolution, written and directed by Peter Duncan, represents the less attractive side of the Australian sensibility I have so often had occasion to praise here. For it is a too-natural development out of healthy skepticism to turn merely cynical, and that is what, I take it, we have here. There is, to…

Another exercise in charm and whimsy from the very charming Audrey Tautou and the very whimsical Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Brian De Palma is a talented director, but he really needs to get himself some better writers. Mission to Mars is full of clever ideas, which are too rare in the movies, and spectacular, computer-generated special effects, which are not nearly rare enough, but much of the dialogue is cornball stuff that could have come…

Cleverness and humor in the manipulation of absurdity can only take you so far. Just about this far, in fact.

Mystery, Alaska, directed by Jay Roach, aspires to be the Rocky of hockey. A small-town hockey team from Alaska (surely they must mean Canada?) takes on the mighty New York Rangers on the neighborhood ice and, against all expectations, goes the distance with them. If you get a lump in your throat when Rocky staggers…