Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)

James Cameron has a lot to answer for. By making the top grossing film of all time a three hour plus extravaganza he has convinced the money men that it’s OK to break the two hour barrier so long as you’ve got a picture that’s going to pull the teeny-boppers, with plenty of spending money…

Why Do Fools Fall in Love — apparently meant to be rendered without its mark of interrogation — is written by Tina Andrews and directed by Gregory Nava and is based on real events. Frankie Lymon (Larenz Tate) wrote and sang the Do-Wop hit of the 1950s of that name and never rose to that…

This Michael Douglas-Albert Brooks odd-couple pairing has a few good jokes but nothing to say that has not been said, and very often said, before.

Josh and Jonas Pate, co-directors of Deceiver, have all the vices of the Coen brothers—mainly pretentiousness and self-conscious artiness—without any of the virtues. Their film is not funny and not even particularly intelligent, although it tries very hard to be the latter. So much so, indeed, that the three main characters are introduced to us…

A good old-fashioned melodrama in not-so-good new-fashioned disguise

Star Maps, written and directed by Miguel Arteta, tells the story of Carlos (Douglas Spain) who comes from his grandparents’ house in Mexico, much against his mother’s wishes, to live with the rest of his family in Los Angeles: his father, Pepe (Efraim Figueroa), his mother, Theresa (Martha Velez), his sister, Maria (Lysa Flores) and…