Third Man, The

Wild Things, directed by John McNaughton and written by Stephen Peters, is superior quality 90s noir — which means, as I have said before, noir without any moral compass whatsoever. It’s too bad because this could have been a good film. It has clever plotting, good dialogue (without being overfull of wisecracks and strained attempts…

Home Fries, written by Vince Gilligan and directed by Dean Parisot, stars Drew Barrymore as Sally, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks made pregnant by a relatively well-to-do married man called Henry. Henry’s wife Beatrice (Catherine O’Hara), having learned of his affair emotionally manipulates her two dutiful sons by an earlier marriage,…

The Farrelly brothers aren’t impressed by shallow, skin-deep beauty
like Gwyneth Paltrow’s. Not much they aren’t.

Guys & Balls (Männer wie wir), directed by Sherry Horman and written by Benedikt Gollhardt, is based on the perennial gay fantasy of the latent homosexuality of those involved in such manly pursuits as soccer — or football as it is known to the rest of the world. Ecki (Maximilian Brückner) is the goalie for Boldrup…

City of Angels by Brad Silberling is a remake of Wim Wenders’s The Wings of Desire which takes many of Wenders’s best ideas and puts them in the service of a standard issue, Hollywood chick flick—a Wallis Simpson fantasy about some big shot guy who gives up everything for a gal. And what a lot…

This film by Peter Hedges tries hard to be both charming and uplifting but doesn’t quite succeed in being either