Fargo

Small Soldiers, directed by Joe Dante, is typical of Hollywood attitudes towards military values and military people. Even the grief of soldiers for their dead comrades in arms is made fun of as the leader of the toy soldiers brought to life by computer wizardry pronounces over one of his men that: “Nick Nitro’s battery…

Atom Egoyan’s curiously unemotional re-telling of the story of the Armenian massacres of 1915 loses itself in its inability to tear itself away from the present day.

How on earth did Ron Howard hope to succeed where Peter Weir failed? Hubris, I suppose. Ron Howard’s done a guest shot on “The Simpsons” (along with those other giants of the silver screen, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger) and Peter Weir hasn’t. But for those of us not giddy with success, however, the idea…

Ma Vie en Rose by Alain Berliner manages to be a charming film, rather in the manner of the upbeat and jokey postmodernism of Berliner’s fellow Belgian, Jaco Van Dormael. Enjoyable as it is in many ways, however, one can never quite lose the sense of being got at by—that rare thing—a perfectly amiable propagandist…

Almost Famous begins in 1969 with a literary discussion about Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird between a precocious eleven year-old, William Miller (Michael Angarano), and his widowed mother, Elaine (Frances McDormand). A college professor in San Diego, Elaine has obviously invested a great deal of hope in her son, whom she intends to be…