Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls poses an interesting problem for me. I think it’s wonderful filmmaking. I think it has some very fine performances. Its story is engaging (if a little — OK, a lot — on the standard backstage bio side) and its characters are interesting and generally sympathetic. I find its musical numbers very nicely […]

There’s no denying that Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of the blood-soaked Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in Kevin McDonald’s The Last King of Scotland is mesmerizingly brilliant (even if I think Peter O’Toole’s turn in Venus edges him out of the year’s top spot). It’s gripping in that it catches the charisma, the self-delusion, the madness and […]

I admit to having approached this third film version of Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil with reservations. I’d disliked John Curran’s previous film, We Don’t Live Here Anymore (2004), and the trailer for this one looked too much like ersatz Merchant-Ivory for its own good. However, as a huge admirer of the writings of once […]

I knew this was going to be a stinker when I saw the trailer for it. The people who cut the trailer also knew it, bending over backwards to try not to tell the viewer that Primeval was about a giant crocodile. (It’s the same approach the folks who make trailers employ on 99 percent […]

Made in 1978, but not released in the U.S. till 1981 (it was thought there wasn’t a market for a film about British poet Stevie Smith), Stevie is most assuredly a movie for specialized tastes. It’s essentially a two-woman show — with occasional appearances by Trevor Howard and Alec McCowen — and theatrical to the […]

When I first heard that the fledgling religious arm of 20th Century Fox, Fox Faith, was bringing out a faith-based horror picture, I thought, “Well, why not?” After all, a lot of horror movies are faith-based. Every time someone whips out a crucifix to back down a vampire, it’s faith-based. And what are The Exorcist […]

Back in 1992, manic comedian Bobcat Goldthwait made a pretty odd — but not unimpressive — debut as a writer-director with a little movie called Shakes the Clown, in which he also starred (joined by a pre-stardom Adam Sandler and a few surprising guests like Robin Williams and Florence Henderson). This singularly twisted look at […]

F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) has been likened — not inaptly — to a chilly blast of doomsday, but that’s a description that could as easily be applied to Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake of that classic of horror cinema. Calling Herzog’s film a remake, while technically correct, does it a grave disservice. Yes, it follows the […]

It’s hard to tell if this conceptually fascinating 1983 film is much more than a curio, simply because it’s impossible to get away from the sense that a nearly two-hour film told entirely in mime and dance (not a word is spoken) is something of a stunt picture. Also, there’s the question of the music, […]

Years ago there was a cartoon in a magazine showing two of Pavlov’s dogs conversing about the ringing bell they’re supposed to associate with food. One dog says to the other, “They want me to salivate, but I’ll be damned if I’ll give them the satisfaction.” Watching Freedom Writers, I knew exactly how that dog […]

I remarked just last week that Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men was one of the few 2006 films I had yet to see that might have altered the face of my ten-best list — and that turned out to be true. Had I been able to see it (thank you, Universal), I would have regretfully […]

By all rights this 1987 film version of the play version of Helene Hanff’s book shouldn’t work. After all, it’s essentially an exchange of letters between two characters — Hanff (Anne Bancroft) and bookseller Frank Doel (Anthony Hopkins) — who never meet. Worse, a great deal of it involves a discussion of (dear Lord!) literature. […]

I kind of like the concept of opening a horror picture on Christmas day — in theory at least. It adds to the mix and the choices. (Not everyone feels the need to be cinematically uplifted.). Plus, it tends to make for some ancillary amusement when it incites a faction of the public into a […]

Not as well known as it ought to be — perhaps because director Ronald Neame isn’t exactly a major figure in film history — The Horse’s Mouth (1958) is quite probably the best film ever made about a painter. For that matter, it’s certainly in the top 20 films made about any kind of artist, […]

There is a moment in Nicholas Hytner’s film of Alan Bennett’s 2004 play, The History Boys, where the boys’ eccentric (to put it mildly) mentor and teacher, Hector (Richard Griffiths), talks about those rare and wonderful — even essential — moments when one encounters a thought, a way of looking at the world through art, […]

Movies don’t get any better than Peter Medak’s film version (1972) of Peter Barnes’ play (1968) The Ruling Class. In fact, if I had to name the five best films ever made, this would be on that list. Unfortunately, while The Ruling Class held considerable cult status in the 1970s (I have seen 300-plus seat […]