In Which We Serve (1942)

Moralizing thieves seem to appeal to a Hispanic audience — rather than the merely immoral thieves who apparently appeal to the rest of us

[See “Entry from July 23, 2008” under “My Diary”] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Fallen, written by Nicholas Kazan and directed by Gregory Hoblit from the novel by Dawn Steele is an idiotic fantasy about a Biblical demon called Azazel who inhabits the body of a murderer named Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas). When Reese is executed for his crimes, the spirit of Azazel transmigrates into the bodies of various…

Rich and powerful Mr Hearst only wants to be loved! The story ought to be in the funny pages of a Hearst newspaper — or a movie by Orson Welles. Peter Bogdanovich’s version is a yawn.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, directed by Jim Jarmusch, is quirky, witty, fun, intelligent, without ever quite being a great movie. It lacks the urgency of great films, films that create their own forms by the power of what they have to say. Jarmusch is really as interested in his little post-modernist bag…

A curious, fly-on-the-wall documentary about some Kansan conservatives mixed with a subdued polemic from Thomas Frank that answers the question of its title only for the cognoscenti