King’s Row (1942)

Making her movie comeback on Friday the 13th as part of a double-act with half of the cursed and talent-deprived Bennifer duo? What could Jane Fonda have been thinking?

U-571 by Jonathan Mostow, who directed and co-wrote it, might have been sub-titled “Indiana Jones Goes Underwater,” so many are the hair- breadth scapes i’th’imminent deadly breach. Once again, Hollywood has refused to learn the lesson that less can be more. For in real life — I mean if you were actually with the handful…

A sci-fi comedy that neglects to be funny

Wild America by William Dear is an engaging kiddie movie, supposedly based on the true story of a family of prominent naturalist-filmmakers, which will provide some wholesome thrills with its peeks at life and wildlife through the eyes of three boys growing up in Arkansas in the late 1960s. Unfortunately, Dear is not content to…

How Stella Got Her Groove Back, directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan from a screenplay by Terry McMillan and Ron Bass from Miss McMillan’s novel, is a middle-aged woman’s wish-fulfilment fantasy and, unfortunately, little else. I thought at least it might be amusingly bad, but it doesn’t even reach as high as that. Angela Bassett stars…

Hard Eight is a brilliant little film by Paul Thomas Anderson, who also wrote the screenplay. It is a retelling (sort of) of Shakespeare’s Tempest set in the seedy but ever-atmospheric world of Nevada gambling dens. It begins with a castaway called John (John C. Reilly), washed up outside “Jack’s Coffee Shop” somewhere along a…