Badlands (1973)

Hurlyburly directed by Anthony Drazan and written (from his stageplay) by David Rabe has an all-star cast, but it cannot escape from the poverty of its script, in which nothing very much happens (people come and go) and all the characters talk exactly alike—that is in a kind of souped-up psychobabble with an occasionally Pinterian…

Rarely has America appeared to better effect as the fairlyland of the immigrants’ dreams. It makes you ashamed to be an American

Let it not be said that Memento, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, has nothing to say. On the contrary, it has a very serious point to make about the way that people manufacture their own reality. In particular, as its subject is revenge and memory-loss, it encourages us to wonder if all revenge is…

Blue Streak, directed by Les Mayfield, reminded me a little of the extremely disturbing Austrian film, Funny Games, reviewed here last year, in that it leads us up the garden path of cinematic convention, then whirls around and cries: “Only kidding!” Nothing is what we thought it was. But where Michael Haneke, the sadist responsible…

The Farrelly brothers aren’t impressed by shallow, skin-deep beauty
like Gwyneth Paltrow’s. Not much they aren’t.

This silly and mindless remake of an American classic is a huge disappointment