Brief Encounter

A curious, fly-on-the-wall documentary about some Kansan conservatives mixed with a subdued polemic from Thomas Frank that answers the question of its title only for the cognoscenti

Play It To the Bone, directed by Ron Shelton, is a Woody Harrelson movie in every sense of the term — that is it is full of macho posturing at the same time that it attempts to make a joke (a rather tired joke by now, you might think) about male stupidity. This is how…

The Lost World: Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg is virtually indistinguishable from the original of four years ago—and indeed from most other Spielbergian products, particularly in their emphasis on wise or clever or dexterous children rescuing their parents and in their environmental message. Indeed, the most curious thing about the whole film is that it…

More evidence that pandering to teenage wish-fulfilment fantasies has taken the place of Hollywood’s old-fashioned style of earnest moralizing

A Chef in Love (or, to give it its French title, Le Mille et Un Recettes d’un Cuisinier Amoureux) by Nana Djordjadze is a Franco-Georgian film which takes the fast-track to success by foreign language films: include lots of food. Set in the Caucasus in 1920, it is the story of a French chef, Pascal…

My Name is Joe, written by Paul Laverty (in Glaswegian with English subtitles) and directed by Ken Loach, stars Peter Mullan as the title character, an unemployed laborer (a surprisingly unobtrusive reminder of Loach’s usual left wing themes) and recovering alcoholic who is introduced to us at an AA meeting. He is now ashamed that,…