Although it finds room, in its three hours, for nearly every known gangster-movie gambit, there is no sense of having gotten at last to the bottom of the criminal underworld. The refined pictorial compositions and lighting effects are styled, misguidedly, after Rembrandt rather than the daily tabloids. And Marlon Brando's …
The Corleone saga continues, after a hiatus of sixteen years of real time, twenty years of screen time. This third installment traverses less ground than its forerunners, only a few months in "1979" [sic], anchored historically to the ascension and theoretical assassination of Pope John Paul I, who, it will …
The adaptation of Sue Miller's novel dawdles through some biographical background of doubtful import, and through a standard movie romance blossoming out of a Meet-Cute at the laundromat (she has removed his wet underwear from the dryer in his absence, but has left behind a pair of pink panties of …
An uphill battle, gamely fought. Franco Zeffirelli, using a (for him) subdued palette, is certainly a more cinematic director than, for a close-by example, Kenneth Branagh in Henry V. So much so that if the sound were to be switched off, the remaining picture would appear to be a truebred …
Three grown-up, go-getter sisters encumbered with a Problem Parent: three top-line actresses (Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow, Diane Keaton) encouraged to give actressy performances by their actress-director (Keaton again). Ryan receives the most encouragement, and commits the worst offenses. The script is by the Ephron sisters, Delia and Nora, so it …
And not only heaven, but God, love, death, and hell -- as envisioned in archival film footage and man-on-the-street interviews. Actually, the men (and women) on the street have been taken off the street and put into Expressionistic sets, shadows, colored lights; and many of the film clips have been …
Even if you had been predisposed to toast Woody Allen for his courage in striking off in a new direction (namely, the comedian's traditional secret desire to do Hamlet), you will probably feel not much like celebrating after you have viewed the results of his labor. This deadly serious movie …
Female buddies from birth (or grade school at the very least), who moonlight as a once-a-week vocal trio in Atlantic City, and who are all made wackily individual without being made believable. One (Diane Keaton) maintains her father's TV memorabilia museum; another (Kathryn Grody) oversees the family taffy-making concern; the …
George Roy Hill's minimalist treatment of the John le Carré espionage novel, about an actress of Leftist and particularly pro-Palestinian leanings who is recruited (and virtually brainwashed) by Israeli intelligence to help flush out a terrorist kingpin. In truth, the heroine's initial motivation is not well established, or anyway the …
Case history of a singles'-bar swinger, chronicled in full from Irish Catholic virginity to Sexual Revolution martyrdom. Richard Brooks, the writer-director, crams the movie with teasers of various types and of dubious merit. He noncommittally offers up several large clues to the heroine's self-destructive, self-debasing nature, plus, for added "psychological …
Woody Allen makes an unexpected retreat, taking along his eyeglasses and neuroses, to Russia of the Napoleonic era and to the social circles charted by Tolstoi, Turgenev, others. He presides over more props, more extras, more budget than ever before (the movie was shot, furthermore, in Paris and Budapest); but …
No you won’t. From Jessie Nelson, the man who brought us Stepmom, I Am Sam, and Fred Claus...need I go on? Staler than year-old rum cake and louder than June Squbb’s holiday sweater, Hollywood yet again ushers in the Christmas season with a dysfunctional family racing to get it together …
It's 30 going on 70 when a big, freaky Friday weekend in Palm Springs goes vice versa after young Mack (Elizabeth Lail) enters a past life regression pod (aka a tanning bed) only to magically (read: inexplicably) emerge as her senior self, Rita (Diane Keaton). (Mack’s skin-tight leggings do wonders …
A demographically diverse trio of women (Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes) are of undivided mind about the wisdom and fun of siphoning off wrinkled old bills, marked for shredding, from the Kansas City Federal Reserve. The director, Callie Khouri, makes a unanimous fourth. A caper comedy heedless of consequences, …
Life and love among the literati in New York City, photographed in stiff, heavy, arty black-and-white by Gordon Willis, and flooded with the music of George Gershwin. Woody Allen, having stayed behind the cameras on his Interiors, is back on screen as his own hero. He has evolved less as …