Bonhoeffer
A heroic German dissident of the Second World War partially overcomes the recent antipathy of the movies towards religious heroes
Entry from June 11, 2003
A petition to Governor Pataki from, among others, 25 First Amendment lawyers, Robin Williams, Penn and Teller, Margaret Cho and the Smothers Brothers, calls on him to pardon, posthumously, the comedian Lenny Bruce, who was convicted of obscenity in New York in 1964. In fact, Bruce was probably the last man ever convicted of obscenity…
Man on the Train, The (L’Homme du Train)
The problem with L’Homme du Train (The Man on the Train), directed by Patrice Leconte (La Veuve de Saint-Pierre, La Fille Sur La Pont, Ridicule) and written by Claude Klotz (Le Mari de la Coiffeuse) is its very French notion of redemption through crime. Like last year’s Sur Mes LPvres (Read My Lips) by Jacques…
Three Marias, The (As Três Marias)
A Brazilian revenge-drama is too portentous and fraught with religious significance for all but the most militant of atheists to appreciate
Finding Nemo
Pixar shows its technical accomplishment once again, but as in Toy Story and A Bug’s Life it doesn’t quite make the feeling believable
Together (Han ni zai yiki)
A lovely and heart-felt film from the Chinese director, Chen Kaige, reminds us of what Hollywood used to do so well but does no more
Entry from May 29, 2003
The success of American arms in Iraq coincides with the publication of a new book by Jonathan Schell titled The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People (448 pages, Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, $27.50). The book, if not quite so hysterical as his earlier Fate of the Earth, gives voice to a similar…
Bruce Almighty
A new Hollywood metaphysical so lacking in imagination that omnipotence is only a means to the end of stardom as a local TV news anchor
In-Laws, The
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.
Entry from May 23, 2003
Ho hum. Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a physician founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and now partner of Osama bin Laden in al-Qaeda has called upon his fellow jihadists to get busy and kill some more infidels and Jews “The crusaders and the Jews only understand the language of murder and bloodshed,” he insists, “and are…
Auberge Espagnole, L’ (The Spanish Apartment)
An inspirational tribute to European unity from a director who is clearly capable of better things
Entry from May 15, 2003
“War does not eradicate terrorism,” announced the headline of an article by Simon Jenkins in The Times of London — as if anyone had ever supposed that it did! Having with remarkable lack of foresight prophesied gloom and doom before the outbreak of the Iraq war and then again when it looked (for about 24…