They Were Expendable (1945)

Divided We Fall by Jan Hrebejk, adapting a novel by Petr Jarchovsky is a very Czech film: charming, warm-hearted, funny, humane and philosophical—a velvet revolution sort of movie. Set before, during and just after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, its characters are all humble, flawed but decent folk coping as best they can with the…

You’d think that Richard Curtis would have reduced the Hugh Grant romantic comedy to a formula by now, but by branching out like this, he has only made a mess

Down to Earth, Chris Rock’s remake (directed by Chris and Paul Weitz) of Heaven Can Wait (1978)—itself a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)—is a disappointment. Though there are some very funny things in it, its glib message about being oneself turns out to be a cover for being self-indulgent, in the style (I’m…

George of the Jungle, directed by Sam Weisman and written by Dana Olsen and Audrey Wells is Disney’s concession to children who found Hercules too sophisticated. I would have guessed that anyone over the age of nine who so much as cracks a smile at all this strenuous but vain effort to be funny must…

Poor Meg Ryan can’t seem to find a decent role in which she is allowed to be a grown-up. Whose idea was it to try making her a boxing manager dressed like a hooker?

An interesting and engaging adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel which might even signal a wider cultural turning away from the liberationist view of sexual passion