Big Sleep, The

Nicole Kidman as a Russian mail-order bride? Who wouldn’t let her beat him up and turn him to a life of crime?

An ambivalent portrait of Ralph Nader contains a lesson for us all

A delightful pastiche of 1950s rom-coms with a weird French accent

If you liked Forrest Gump you will probably like Contact, which is by the same director, Robert Zemeckis. I didn’t like Forrest Gump. In fact, I hated Forrest Gump, so it is not surprising that I also hate Contact, which is full of exactly the same kind of cheap uplift as that on offer in…

[See discussion under “My diary” entry for June 28, 2012]  Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Breakdown by Jonathan Mostow is a superior sort of thriller that is a step in the right direction after recent Hollywood examples of the genre—that is, in the direction of the things that ordinary, reasonable people really do fear. Which is to say not unbelievably big Amazonian snakes or volcanos erupting in downtown Los Angeles…