King’s Row (1942)

I tried very hard to like A Simple Plan, written by Scott B.Smith and directed by Sam (Evil Dead) Raimi, but I was only partly successful. The movie seems to have been heavily influenced by Fargo, right down to the vast and snowy prairie landscapes and the unexpectedly satisfying moralism of the ending, and, insofar…

Body Shots, directed by Michael Cristofer and written by David McKenna, is really two movies in one, pulling in opposite directions—a fact which, whether it is intended as a kind of post-modern experiment or simply the result of incompetence, is fatal to its success. The first movie is a sort of latter-day comedy of manners,…

Another propaganda effort, along the lines of Pleasantville or American Beauty, against what could still be called, in the 1950s, middle class morality.

Grosse Pointe Blank by George Armitage is a high concept movie. A hit man called Martin Blank (John Cusack) goes to his 10 year high school reunion. He tells people matter of factly what he does and they reply by saying something like: “Do you get dental with that?” or “Do you have to do…

Rough Magic written and directed by Clare Peploe has got to be a contender for worst movie of the year. It’s a real stinker. The worst thing about it is its preposterous plot, full of what is obviously meant to look like bits of “magic realism” but coming across instead as a sort of cartoon…

A rather busy and overstuffed coming-of-age drama with a distinctively Australian touch to it