Public Enemy, The

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but just in case you’ve been living in Borneo for the last 80 years you might not know that the class-ridden British army in World War One was staffed by senior officers who were idiots and junior officers who were amateurish, upper-class twits, while the ranks were…

The comic foundations of the original Barbershop are not sturdy enough to bear the weight of another such edifice

. . .And speaking of witless sequels, Batman and Robin directed by Joel Schumacher is a pathetic document—un-clever and un-funny. And being un-clever and un-funny are the two cardinal sins for any such obvious attempt at postmodern filmmaking as a Batman sequel. Given that we’ve got to watch this kind of garbage (since Hollywood hardly…

[See discussion under “My diary” entry for June 29, 2011] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Like most Hollywood attempts at satire, Dick, directed by Andrew Fleming, falls into the fatal trap of becoming too cozy with the object of its satirical attentions. This is a pity because there are many good and funny things in it. It would have been a great movie if it could have kept its focus…

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…