Breaking Away (1979)

A movie about abortion that makes Juno or Knocked Up look as trivial and sentimental as most other Hollywood products

In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-wai is a beautiful film. In fact, it is a film that the word “beautiful,” as applied to the movies, could have been invented to describe. It helps, of course, that the two principal players are Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, both extraordinarily good-looking people, and that the…

A parable or fairy tale of social renewal from the master cinematic chronicler of the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie

Ronin is directed by John Frankenheimer and is named after the masterless warriors in feudal Japan who, having lost face through failing to protect their lord, are condemned to wander the earth as outcasts and bandits and not even allowed to call themselves samurai anymore. At one point in the film the official explainer who…

Me Myself I, written and directed by Pip Karmel, is a sort of Australian version of Sliding Doors but with little of its prototype’s wit or cleverness. Everybody’s favorite bouncing Aussie lass, Rachel Griffiths (who, like Toni Collette, sprang to international stardom out of Muriel’s Wedding) plays a 30-something journalist in Sydney called Pam Drury….

Nurse Betty, the new film by Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors), is wonderfully enjoyable all the way through until its last ten minutes when suddenly the wild and thrilling ride it has offered us comes to a dead end. The story concerns Betty (Renée Zellweger), a small-town waitress from…