Dull title, and for good reason. That's not the title. The title in the original French, the title spelled out on screen, is Une Liaison Pornographique, no translation necessary. (Maybe an explanation of "irony" is necessary.) The film itself, concerning a pair of perfect strangers who meet through the Classifieds …
Skulduggery in and around the court of Louis XVI, based on fact, with interpretive leeway. So stuffy and stilted a costume piece ("How skillfully you play the rogue. Yet even you cannot mask such impenetrable loneliness") that it approaches parody. When Christopher Walken turns up in the part of Cagliostro, …
You paint? I walk! Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr star in a same-director (Leo McCarey), same-story remake of 1939's Love Affair. (Not to be confused with the Warren Beatty/Glenn Gordon Caron 1994 remake, also named Love Affair.) Ranked #5 on the American Film Institute's list of Most Romantic Movies. Wouldn't …
A legacy-of-abuse tragedy with heavy psychologizing and moralizing -- altogether as chilly as its upstate New Hampshire locale during deer-hunting season. It showcases ferociously fine work from Nick Nolte as the figurehead policeman of a sleepy small town, not unlike the Stallone character in Copland, who convinces himself that a …
A seaside vacation takes an unexpected turn when Leon and Felix show up at Felix's family's holiday home to discover Nadja, a mysterious woman, already there. As an ever encroaching forest fire threatens their well-being, relationships are tested and romances are kindled. Directed by Christian Petzold, starring Thomas Schubert, Paula …
Dryly academic thriller on the themes of blindness and perception, a tall order for a director without much of an eye: screenwriter Mark Peploe, past collaborator of Antonioni and Bertolucci. An unscrupulous switch from Oz to Kansas (in effect) pulls the rug out from under you halfway through, and you …
Documentary about cheetahs and lions living wild on the savannah. Expect some carnage. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.
An abnormally hairy, scratching, apish Bogart and a normally haughty Hepburn appear to thrive and purr and scarcely conceal their delight amid the purported annoyances of the Congo wilderness, of the First World War, and of each other's company. James Agee's script seems somewhat trampled-on, as though it were regarded …
God knows I’ve tried on several occasions to grasp the genius of this vaunted chestnut, the wormy apple of John Huston fan’s eyes. Even a 35mm dye-transfer Technicolor® print wasn’t enough to recruit me. The last thing this reporter wants to do is book passage up river with a grimy …
Existential pulp thriller from the canon of Jim Thompson, the sort of marginal but not negligible talent so useful in forming a cult, especially in a foreign country, especially France. The novels for the most part don't date well, and this adaptation by James Foley often seems anachronistically stilted. Jason …
An exploration into what happens after we die, based on real near-death experiences, conveyed by scientists, authors, and survivors, providing a cinematic peek beyond the veil that examines the spiritual and scientific dimensions of mortality.