Magnificent Ambersons, The (1942)

What might have been devastating satire becomes just a funny movie about crazy people — not that that’s nothing

Well, they got the loathing part right anyway. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, directed by Terry Gilliam, is very nearly as unwatchable as the book by Hunter S. Thompson on which it is based is unreadable. In spite of the presence of Johnny Depp, for whose talent I have considerable respect, in the Raul…

A gently comic and poignant film about the hope of youth and the disappointments of age set against the backdrop of Arab-Israeli relations

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

You can see why the novel The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacqueline Mitchard made such a hit as the first selection of the Oprah book club and why its film version, directed by Ulu Grosbard from a script by Stephen Schiff, will doubtless be the chick flick of the season. There’s a child…

Excess Baggage, directed by Marco Brambilla but under the creative control of Alicia Silverstone stars the rather pudgy Miss Silverstone as Emily Hope, a poor little rich girl, always getting into trouble, who stages her own kidnapping so that her brute of a father, who is a shady businessman in Seattle who is not overeager…