Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Its heart is in the right place, but the inspirational uplift looks just a bit artificial

Career Girls provides evidence that Mike Leigh has been spoiled by success. Or by something. Anyway, he is spoiled. Perhaps it is because he has mellowed politically. This film only has one gratuitous swipe at Margaret Thatcher, and even that seems half-hearted at best. He was better when he was a fulminating leftie. At least…

Inventing the Abbotts directed by Pat O’Connor from a story by Sue Miller is set in the 1950s and runs through the usual movie and journalistic clichés about that era as a time of “innocence.” In addition to authentic cars and clothes and appliances and TV shows (surprisingly, there is little period rock ‘n’ roll),…

Jackie Brown confirms two things we have always really known about Quentin Tarantino at his best (at his worst he is just unspeakable). One is that he is the most compulsively watchable filmmaker now working in America. He knows how to keep an audience riveted to the screen, and he knows how to tell a…

If what happens to Nicholas Cage happened to you, it might be enough to get you out of the confidence man’s game too — unless you can think of some other reason for being honest

Perhaps not the best of the recent crop of movies about grief, this Israeli film is nevertheless very watchable