Magnificent Ambersons, The (1942)

When J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World had its premiere in Dublin in 1907 there were riots in the streets because the play was thought to be a vicious slander on the Irish people. Synge had seemed to suggest that it was characteristic of the Irish blarney, at least among the rural folk that…

A film critic called upon to review a James Bond movie feels a bit like a restaurant critic who is asked to review McDonald’s. The World is Not Enough, directed by Michael Apted, is like most of its 18 predecessors pure McEntertainment. Anyone who has been to the other Bond films will know exactly what…

Nothing to Lose, written and directed by Steve Oedekerk, stars Tim Robbins as Nick, an advertising executive in Los Angeles who is carjacked by “T” (Martin Lawrence) while in a state of shock over his apparent discovery of his wife, Ann (Kelly Preston), in bed with his boss, Phil (Michael McKean). Sittiing at an intersection…

Bad jokes are like rotten apples: it only takes a few of them to spoil the whole barrel. Company Man, a co-written, co-directed effort by Douglas McGrath and Peter Askin, starts off very promisingly. Its jokes are crisp and tart and juicy. But not long into it we take our first bite of the rotten…

Another cinematic exercise in drinking deep from the intoxicating stream of popular paranoia

A devastating look at the corrupt political and educational establishment in New Jersey with powerful implications for other states