Pursuit of Happyness, The

I confess. When I was a callow youth—even, let it be said, a moony adolescent, I occasionally had fantasies like that which lies behind and beneath Notting Hill. I guess I always knew that neither Sophia Loren nor Elizabeth Taylor could ever be mine—not because they were superstars or married to other people but because…

Another movie celebration of media narcissism, and an evocation of pathos for the long recessional of the newspaper business’s terminal decline

Hope Floats directed by Forrest Whitaker to a screenplay by Steven Rodgers is a feel-good movie selling a relatively innocuous version of the Hollywood dream—i.e. that all the world’s problems come from people, especially parents and children, not hugging each other enough and giving tongue to their feelings of love for each other. The other…

Mira Sorvino is the only triumphant thing about this inept adaptation of a Marivaux play.

The best line in Random Hearts, adapted from the novel by Warren Adler by Kurt Luedtke and directed by Sydney Pollack, comes when the frail-looking but impossibly beautiful novice congresswoman, Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott-Thomas) tries to get tough with the tough old cop, “Dutch” Van Den Broeck (Harrison Ford), from the District of Columbia Police…

Twin Dragons, starring Jackie Chan and directed by Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam is a huge disappointment. Regular readers will know that I am a Chan fan, but although it was made some years ago in Hong Kong, this movie looks like one made to suit a big star who has too much creative control…