I saw this Woody Allen movie twice this summer and was moved each time by the beautifully imagined and realized journeys into Paris of the 1920s and, more briefly, of La Belle Époque taken by the protagonist Gil Pender (played by Owen Wilson), a screenwriter and aspiring novelist with a strongly romantic bent. How seductive […]

Here is what New York Times critic Vincent Camby wrote about True Confessions when the movie came out in September 1981: “Quite simply it’s one of the most entertaining, most intelligent and most thoroughly satisfying commercial American films in a very long time.” I have to agree that this is indeed a nearly flawless film. […]

I adore this movie. Partly for the simple reason that I believe it is a thoughtful and well crafted meditation on love, destiny, and growth; partly because every viewing experience is coloured by what I know is going to happen, both in the film’s immediate story and in the larger picture of music history; and […]

Jane (Meryl Streep) and Jake (Alec Baldwin) have been divorced for ten years. He’s remarried, to a younger woman; she’s still single. His marriage is not going the way he had imagined it would; she’s a little lonely now that the last of their three children has moved out from Mom’s. He still has feelings for her; she’s just vulnerable—well, maybe she still cares for him a little as well.

I am aware that most adults go to the movies or watch them at home in order to be entertained, to briefly escape, perhaps, from their stressful or humdrum lives. I spent more than a few years as a member of this group and certainly sympathize with the desire to enjoy a couple of hours […]

These two films—Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968)—star Peter O’Toole (propelled to the limelight by his stunning big-screen debut as T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia) as England’s powerful Norman king, Henry II. In Becket, Henry is young and eager to consolidate his power by dominating the church in England; to this end […]

This classic 1972 film is the last of the great musicals. But unlike Singin’ in the Rain, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Bob Fosse’s Cabaret is much more than the sum of its memorable tunes. In fact, Cabaret concocts a rich and satisfying brew of brilliant cinematography, editing, set and costume design, acting, […]