Son’s Room, The (La Stanza del Figlio)
This one’s a real winner — if you can bear to watch it.
We’re Taking a Poll on How Bright You Are. . .
Pollsters get the results they’re looking for: Strongly Agree, Somewhat
Agree, Somewhat Disagree, Strongly Disagree, Don’t Know?
— from The New Criterion
We Were Soldiers
Another indication, along with Black Hawk Down (but not Hart’s War), that the era of war movies in which the soldiers are either victims or psychopathic killers may be over.
Hart’s War
What is honor? Blackhawk Down will tell you (without using the word) but in this movie it gets all mixed up with racial tolerance.
Last Orders
Yet another showcase of British acting talent turns out to be pretty good as a movie too.
He Spied Because He Had To?
Anthony Blunt had, apparently, a lot of reasons for betraying his country. Didn’t he have any not to?
— from The Washington Times
Scotland, PA
What? You didn’t think Macbeth was a comedy? Where have you been? This movie does for Shakespeare what Clueless did for Jane Austen, and it is at least as funny.
Storytelling
There is sometimes a fine line between the pitiless, unflinching gaze that sees things as they are and the impulse to glory in moral squalor. Todd Solondz doesn’t avoid crossing it.
Beijing Bicycle (Shiqi sui de dan che)
A sharply-observed and powerful tragi-comedy set in the streets of Beijing is at least the equal of its Italian neo-realist model.
What Was the Founders’ “Sacred Honor”?
Joanne B. Freeman’s take on honor has a lot to teach us in spite of its misconceptions.
—From the Times Literary Supplement of London
Burn, Bernie, Burn
That old favorite subject, media bias is with us again, and again the debate
consists of “Are too!” — “Am not!”
— from the February New Criterion