Don't, whatever you do, watch La Ceremonie the night before the entire family cozies up to watch Mozart's Don Giovanni OR just before you go to bed (you'll be staring at the dark ceiling all night). La Ceremonie is among the select few chillers that top all the other chillers trying to do the same thing. Jacqueline Bisset is Catherine Lelievre, a nice, well-to-do…
For the record, Anne Parillaud IS La Femme Nikita in a well-made, solidly constructed French thriller that also features the legendary Jeanne Moreau. So leave it to Hollywood to co-opt, distort, and screw up a huge international hit. Question: What is the difference between the 1990 indie La Femme Nikita and the 1993 Warner Bros. release Point of No Return? Answer: Point of No Return is in English…
In this 1974 film by Louis Malle, we are presented with an unlikely object of audience sympathy. Lucien (Pierre Blaise) smashes little birds with slingshots, finks on the village schoolmaster who's a member of the French resistance, and forces himself on his Jewish girlfriend immediately after her father has been picked up by the Nazis. Through it all, newcomer Blaise gives an…
Yes, Hugh Beaumont did have an acting career long before he became Ward Cleaver, but you can't see him in a movie in a revival theatre without hearing a near-deafening buzz: “Oh-my-God! That's-Beaver's-father!” The Lady Confesses is fun because Beaumont's wholesome appeal has a sinister twist here.
Writer/director Frank LaLoggia clearly spent a great deal of time and care to make his movie exactly the way he wanted it: Lady in White is a lovely, gentle film that really understands childhood terrors on their own terms. Lukas Haas, whose large brown eyes were so memorable in 1986's Witness, plays 10-year-old writer Frank Scarlatti. Frankie's vivid imagination scares his cl…
The Lady Vanishes was Alfred Hitchcock's ticket to Hollywood. When I got a Eurailpass in 1975 and took Amtrak cross-country in 1977, I was disappointed that I didn't meet any cool passengers like Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) or Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) or Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) or a high-heeled…
Poor Cow is a British flick that I've always wanted to see, but have never been able to find. It starred the late Carol White (1941–91) as Joy in the title role, and Terence Stamp, then 28, as Dave. Adapted (from Neil Dunn's novel) and directed by Kenneth Loach, 31, this 1967 drama explored the life of a woman who moved in with her incarcerated husb…
Katie Johnson was WAY down on the cast list of most of the movies that she made, but in The Ladykillers, she was the star, and high time, too. She's absolutely terrific as Mrs. Wilberforce, a sweet little old lady who outwits a bunch of crooks who plan to murder her. Alec Guinness, looking his all-time seediest, was “Professor” Marcus, the leader of the gang; Cecil Parker WAS …
Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm just may be the only film you'll ever see in which an archaeologist in kilts wards off a vampire cop by playing the bagpipes. It also functions as a cautionary tale to Boy Scouts who may be tempted to accept a lift from a ravishing lady vampire in a Jaguar. And, like Hillaire Belloc, Victorian author of such Cautionary Verses as Jim, Who Ran Away …
Gino (Enrico Lo Verso) and Fiore (Michele Placido) are Italian partners who dream up what they believe is a sure-fire scheme to make some money in Albania, now that its Communist system is out of power. They're not allowed to run a company because they're not Albanians, so they hustle an old man (Carmelo Di Mazzarelli as Spiro) to be the figu…
L'Amour en Herbe is wonderfully written and directed by Roger Andrieux. Andrieux coaxes terrific performances out of an inexperienced cast, including Pascal Meynier and Guilhaine Dubos as Marc and Martine, a 16-year-old boy and 17-year-old girl who fall in love. The simple love story emphasizes the more complicated background against which it develops: are love-struck children the only ones…
Lancelot of the Lake was a smash hit at the Cannes Film Festival; I wonder why.
The Land that Time Forgot is inspired by one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ non-Tarzan books. Starring the late Doug McClure (1935–95) as Bowen Tyler, it deals with the age-old story of a crew of men (plus Susan Penhaligon as a character named Lisa Clayton thrown in for good measure) who accidentally stumble on a mysterious territory, jam-packed with cave men an…
There was no time to grieve for the last of the Romanovs after Nicholas II, Alexandra, and their five children were massacred at Ekaterinburg in 1918. The Soviet Union, then in its infancy, did not permit such a threatening luxury. Yet the sense of loss must have been intense to endure through nearly 75 years of repression. When the collapse of the Soviet Union made it safe to express such emotion…
Welcome to Hell, circa 1952. The Korean War is still going on, as we can see from the young men who depart from the nearby Navy yards. Closer to home, a factory strike has been going on for six months, with no end in sight. Harry Black (Stephen Lang) has been stealing from the strike funds so that he can have an extramarital affair with his gay lover (Alexis Arquette as George…
If anyone decides to do another homage to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, let me suggest Jared Leto for the part of Cesare the somnambulist. With those luminous blue eyes, he's sure to get viewer's pulses racing and he won't even have to pretend to be awake. As Jordan Catalano on My So-Called Life, he was easily the most laid-back member of the cast, but so cute that no one minde…
Suzy Amis in Blown Away. Anne Archer in Patriot Games AND Clear and Present Danger. Linda Hamilton in Silent Fall. What do all these actresses have in common? Wimpo women's parts! They're there for hugging and kissing. They wait while the HERO fights in all sorts of dangerous situations. They may even be brain surgeons! But so what? They have NO meaningful moments onscreen. And then …
Last Summer focuses on a beautifully photographed but threatening shift of circumstances: a family facing relocation.
In Pedro Almodovar's Law of Desire, the great Carmen Maura invests her role as transsexual actress Tina Quintero with such extremes of fire and ice, both beautifully controlled, that you can watch nothing else when she is onscreen.
France's Le Grand Chemin/The Grand Highway shows how the visit of a shy little boy throws the lives of a group of villagers into high relief.
Les Sexe des Etoiles is a film without a neat wrap-up.
Before he moved to America in 1966, Sidney J. Furie (The Ipcress File) was considered a remarkable director, and 1963's The Leather Boys represents some of his finest work. This thoughtful film is an interesting study of latent homosexuality clashing against the more conventional life envisioned by Rita Tushingham as a young bride named Dot. Dot is in love with a biker named R…
As Miss Jean Brodie would say, “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.” Before I'd re-evaluate this downer, I'd do the following, and all on the same day: (1) take care of that root canal, (2) squirm through a tetanus shot, and (3) look up that kid from fourth grade who used to pull up his ey…
The print was not a good one.
Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist, Judy Chaikin's concise, well-edited documentary, focuses on the widows and children of the men who were blacklisted half a century ago, all of whom are still coping with the pain of the past.
Without wallowing in nostalgia, Peter Medak attempts to understand the world in which he grew up with an admirably low-key directing style. Medak's view of post-war Britain is far from flattering, and it may be hard for Americans to understand the toll that extended rationing placed on Brits until 1954 for food and 1957 for petrol. The 1950s were not a good time for Britain, and the country…
Let's Get Lost was nominated for an Oscar and The Thin Blue Line wasn't. As callous as it sounds, that may be because at least the Academy members knew who the late Chet Baker was, unlike Randall Dale Allan. Twenty minutes into Bruce Weber's sluggish study of a jazz artist in decline, my question was not “What's going to happen next?” but “Do I have…
Letters from the Park is about two shy young people who hire a clerk for the purpose of a romance by mail.
Filmmaker Arthur Dong was the victim of a hate crime in the 1970s. Since his assailants were all juveniles, their criminal records were sealed. Long after coming to terms with the attack, Dong wanted to understand how and why hate crimes continue to occur, from the perspective of seven murderers of gay men. Donald Aldrich, the only one of the seven on death row, murdered a 23-year-old male victim …
The surprise among 1998's Oscar nominees was to see this $6.5 million Italian import receive seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Roberto Benigni), Best Director (Benigni), Best Foreign Film, Best Screenplay (by Benigni and Vincenzo Cerami), Best Dramatic Score (by Nicola Piovani), and Best Editin…
Wayne Wang appears to be an artist struggling for his own voice in his fifth effort, Life Is Cheap…But Toilet Paper Is Expensive. Like Pedro Almodovar, director of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Wang is using an inferior product to battle a censorship issue. It's hard to render much enthusiasm for a movie when its denouement consists of a wisecrack delivered while the protagonist is eating…
Watching Lightning Jack is like spending an hour and a half with a well-meaning but boring uncle who thinks he's cute and clever and funny and demands every conceivable chance to prove all three. At a social gathering, you'd be sitting there with a smile chained to your face, waiting for someone, anyone, to change his needle. But no one has that excuse at the neighborhood bijou, whic…
Like Water for Chocolate is one of Mexico's biggest hits and it did equally well here, thanks to an excellent cast, lush cinematography, and its frank exploration of sexual tensions within the family.
Despite lackluster returns at the boxoffice, The Linguini Incident is notable for several reasons. It is the first Rosanna Arquette movie I can recall in which she wears clothes in every single scene. It is also the first romantic comedy Cor David ("Oh well, there's always Bowie—HE'LL play a Martian") Bowie. The Linguini Incident is also an hilarious spoof of Man…
Lisa is the first film I rented just because I liked the clip they were playing in the video store. (We don't recall seeing ANY other advertisements for this movie, which is a 1990 variation on 1965's I Saw What You Did theme). Karen Clark's screenplay clearly has some first-hand understanding of what it's like to be an isolated 14-year-old girl. Lisa and …
Lisztomania is a movie to avoid, with a score by Rick Wakeman that would horrify Liszt.
The Charles Dickens the 20th century prefers to remember is the man who wrote about the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Dickens also wrote about the boys David and Oliver who evolved, at least on film, into nostalgic symbols of wretched childhoods whose lives were sweetened by sudden charity. Yet Dickens was also a severe critic of a 19th century society that lionized apparent succe…
Nineteenth century London was not quite as rosy as it appears in contemporary storybooks. Typhoid ran rampant among rich and poor alike, debtor's prisons were a fact of life, and work was often synonymous with unrelieved drudgery. And then there was something called a government bureaucracy that first engulfed and finally drained those who tried to grapple with it. In Little Dorrit, named 1…
Jodie Foster could have been a film noir heroine of the ‘40s and ‘50s, but she was born too late, my darlings! Instead, we get to see her in a great movie like The Little Girl Who Lives down the Lane, which would never have been made prior to 1976. Jodie plays a brilliant little girl who lives alone with her equally brilliant “father” and is persistently harassed by the…
Watch Charlton Heston's 1996 Canadian remake if you must, but the original movie is far superior. Duncan MacRae didn't have to impersonate a stern Scottish Grandaddy, he lived and breathed the role of Jim MacKenzie. Anyway, the focus rightfully belongs on the kids: Jon Whiteley, then eight, and Vincent Winter, six, deservedly won Oscars as Harry and Davy, who really want a dog, but w…
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland has quite a few things going for it. Ray Bradbury created the concept for Chris Columbus’ screenplay and the animation effectively blends a fluid Disney-style animation with the charm of the original artwork by Winsor McCay. The thing that didn't work for me was the overpowering soundtrack. It was distracting to hear vocalists (including …
After 1992's Reservoir Dogs, Tim Roth could have played a killer in his sleep. As hitman Joshua Shapira, he goes back to Brighton Beach (where he grew up) to kill his next target. The situation of a killer being sheltered within an American family was previously explored in 1943's Shadow of a Doubt, but in that film, the Merry Widow Killer returns to a bright, glistenin…
The Little Prince was a major disappointment in 1974, and still is, for those who would like to see a decent adaptation of Antoine De Saint-Exupery's (1900–44) delicate little book. Every time the orchestra begins to play another awful song in the terrible score, you'll shudder with embarrassment. Director Stanley Donen seems to have the unerring knack for making…
The Little Princess is the most frequently televised of all the Shirley Temple vehicles made by 20th Century Fox between 1934 and 1940, and with good reason. Someone forgot to renew the film's 1939 copyright and it lapsed into the public domain in 1967. It is among the best of Temple's childhood movies with a strong storyline, great supporting cast, and the obligatory dream sequence …
Bonnie Dickenson has just enough of an onscreen personality to keep you watching her performance as the offbeat Frances in Little Shots of Happiness. By day, she works at a collection agency for a credit card company until 5 p.m. By night, anything goes, including massive consumption of alcohol. Frances wakes up where she wakes up, which could be just about anywhere. Still, except for one morning …
Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion began life as Scene 6, Take 1 (manically well acted by Steve Buscemi as director Nick Reve), all about the technical nightmares that occur on a low-budget film where the six-day-old milk is the most experienced member of the crew. The 17-minute segment, shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival, wound up as the first sequence in th…
Loch Ness deserved an art house run instead of the world premiere on network television that it finally received. But the title suggests a monster movie, which it isn't. And Ted Danson's television-style emoting, unlike the performances of the rest of the cast, shrieks “TELEFEATURE!” Danson is Dr. Jonathan Dempsey, searching for Nessy in the Highlands with his helper Ad…
I first read Vladimir Nabokov's classic novel Lolita late at night with a flashlight when I was way too young for it—12. At that age, the idea of any middle-aged man slobbering all over a kid was the ultimate gross-out, although I must confess that I couldn't put down the book all night long. The idea of returning to the original source material has always made me squeamish, b…
I wasn't supposed to read Lolita when I was 12, but I did, anyway, mostly because I wasn't supposed to read Lolita when I was 12. It's a very troubling book for a kid that age and I felt miserable the whole time I was reading it (with a homemade Heidi cover to fool the Sisters of the Holy Cross at Holy Rosary Convent School). Watching Adrian Lyne's Lolita …
Hanif Kureishi has written some fine screenplays for director Stephen Frears, but left to his own devices, the best he can come up with is London Kills Me, a shapeless film about the down-and-out residents of Ladbroke Grove. Beware of movies where the synopsis and the auteur's explanation of why he had to make the movie fill up six pages of the press kit! If it ain't on the screen, f…
John Sayles is perhaps the most thoughtful and individualistic of today's independent filmmakers. He could easily cross over to make a mass audience action flick, but he never has and very likely never will, knock wood. His 1996 project, Lone Star, is an ambitious movie about a lot of different stuff, but the dots aren't always connected. The script has a first-draft feel that sugges…
It took 33 years and producer George Harrison to bring Brian Moore's classic novel, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, to the screen. But it was well worth the long wait. Thanks, George! This is the Catholic critique to end all Catholic critiques, and now that I've seen Maggie Smith as Judy and Bob Hoskins as Jim, I can't imagine any other actors who could have played them h…
The Mirror Crack'd (set in The Coronation Year 1953) and The Long Good Friday (set in The Wedding of the Century Year 1981) were both released the same month that Prince Charles and Lady Diana announced their engagement to the world. I can't think of two films that better revealed the dissolution of Things Past and the destiny of Things to Come. The Long G…
Longtime Companion shows how a happy, creative, close-knit group of friends are decimated by the AIDS virus throughout the ‘80s. First to go is John (Dermot Mulroney), then David's lover, Sean (Mark Lamos), a television writer. Bruce Davison deservedly won an Oscar nomination as David for an achingly restrained performance reflecting the real-life role tha…
By the time Look Back in Anger arrived on the big screen, only three years had elapsed since its theatrical nod had created a sensation, but it seemed much longer. At age 27, John Osborne had forever changed the look and sound of British theatre, but his Angry Young Man had aged prematurely. In its own grouchy way, Osborne's hatred of the status quo seemed to echo the civilized rantings of …
Lost Highway takes its time getting started; nearly a third of the running time creeps by before anything remotely approaching a narrative thrust turns up. Fred and Renee Madison (Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette) keep finding videotapes on their doorstep. Then, blink-and-you'll-miss-it, Fred is in a death row jail cell, awaiting his execution via the electric chair for Rene…
This is one of the few American Film Theatre productions I wouldn't mind seeing again.
After 1994's Natural Born Killers exploited the illusion that violence is sexy, follow-up clones were inevitable. Case in point: Love and a .45, directed by C.M. Talkington. Or maybe no one directed this thing. Maybe C.M. just pointed cameras at the actors and told them to ham it up. And they do; every single one of them, without exception, overacts his or her little heart out. The leader o…
The title of the movie is Love and Death on Long Island, or is it Love and De'Ath on Long Island, as in Giles De'Ath, drolly played by the delightful John Hurt? De'Ath is an obscure Brit writer and a distinguished looking gent in his late 50s who deplores anything developed in his own lifetime or, indeed, at any time throughout the 20th century. And then he's persuaded …
At the time of her suicide at 25, Ruan Ling-Yu was China's leading actress and the sudsy Love and Duty shows why. As Yang Naifan, Ling-Yu ages from a sheltered school girl to a chic matron to a runaway lover to an old-before-her-time seamstress, raising her illegitimate daughter without the support of her long-dead lover. Ling-Yu worked from the inside out, so her evolution is persuasively …
Canada's Love and Human Remains supplies a quirky look at the romantic rituals of two roommates; he's gay and she's straight, sort of. They both want to meet a nice guy but they're afraid, and why not? There's a serial killer on the loose. She succumbs to a one-night stand with a romantic lesbian at her gym and then falls for a bartender before she discovers he&#…
A contemporary Chicago nightclub, the Sanctuary, is the gathering spot for middle-class black urbanites looking for romance.
Stanley Kwan's Love Unto Waste is a flashy existential film about love and friendship in Hong Kong of the 1980s.
I didn't know what to make of this odd little indie, which I picked up on an impulse from a video shelf, but it's been lingering in my mind ever since. Jake (extremely well played by Tara Subkoff) is a little homeless girl who tries to move in with her mean older sister, Darlene (Kristy Swanson). Darlene won't let Jake crash with her, not even for o…
More people saw Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb punch Robert Shaw as Red Grant in the stomach than will ever see a frame of this move, which is a pity really, because The Luck of Ginger Coffey contains one of Shaw's finest performances. Shaw is Ginger Coffey, who moves to Canada with his family, dreaming of a better life. Instead, he slides deeper and deeper into alcoholism. A strong cast gives m…
Who could resist a movie premise like this one? A rich jerk named Sam is 10 minutes late for a plane that crashes on take-off with no survivors. At the airport, the victims’ heartbroken relatives scream at Sam: “Why you?” In the men's room, Sam ponders his escape from certain death and determines to be kinder to the people in his life. The only problem is, they'r…
“Oh, Lucky Jim, how I envy him…” Well, who wouldn't, when he's played by the delightful Ian Carmichael, long before he inherited the role of Lord Peter Wimsey? The thing is, university lecturer Jim Dixon is far from lucky, although he'd certainly like to be. This wonderfully played, deftly directed vintage Britcom is a good one to rent when you're h…
At first, Lullaby offers a child's-eye view of sheer loveliness unclouded by foreboding.
Jeanne Moreau assembled an impressive cast (including Keith Carradine, who has very little to do here) and technical crew, but the result is a carefully wrought film in every respect except one: Moreau, clearly wanting to reveal the strong ties that bind women together, gets sidetracked by (and overwhelmed with) the superficial ways in which her characters express their…
An earnest but dull look at Martin Luther (Stacy Keach), as seen by John Osborne.