Queen, The

There is a certain kind of modern novel that is not really a novel at all but a series of ruminations on life, the universe and everything by a narrator who is a would-be philosopher and thinly disguised stand-in for the author. The master of this sort of ruminative fiction is Richard Ford, whose novels,…

Most Wanted, directed by David Glenn Hogan, is not without signs of talent, and it has one or two finely managed scenes. I especially liked the one where Keenen Ivory Wayans in the role of James Dunn, a stock innocent con on the lam (and boy is he innocent! he only got put in jail…

Still Crazy, directed by Brian Gibson from a script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, also the writers of The Commitments, does about as good a job as it is possible to do with such predictable material as the reunion twenty years later of an aging 70s pop group. The recent Velvet Goldmine dealt…

A bleak, Third World love story that requires — but does not necessarily repay — a good deal of patience

Like David Lynch in The Straight Story, Mike Leigh apparently thought it was time to surprise us with Topsy-Turvy. Instead of his usual dark and sardonic and implicitly political look at present- day Britain, he offers us an ostensibly sunny period-piece about, of all things, the collaboration of W.S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and Sir Arthur…

The latest in this year’s spate of Bush-bashing documentaries goes after Karl Rove