Magnificent Ambersons, The (1942)

One True Thing, directed by the excellent Carl Franklin (Devil in the Blue Dress and that Arkansas movie with Billy Bob Thornton) and based on the novel by Anna Quindlen, suffers from trying to do too much. It is really three separate stories that are like plants grown too close together, all fighting for the…

Shouldn’t a heartwarming family comedy start with a heartwarming family? Not, apparently, if they’re the Douglases.

A movie that prompts the reflection that the therapeutic romance isn’t really romantic at all

A gripping account of the capture of FBI mole Robert Hanssen which is just the teensiest bit hazy on why he wanted capturing

A moving and beautiful portrait of the natural bond between teacher and pupils that is also a stealth critique of today’s educational orthodoxy

Passion of Mind is the first film in English of Alain Berliner, the director of the charmingly disturbing or, disturbingly charming, Belgian film Ma Vie en Rose. Perhaps it was decided that for his American debut he needed to find his audience with the help of a star of the stature of Demi Moore. Similar…