Although he couldn’t have known it at the time, growing up in Baltimore during the 1950s would prove to be filmmaker Barry Levinson’s smartest career move. First in Diner, then in Tin Men, Avalon, and now Liberty Heights, he has drawn on the specific time, place, and culture of his…
Earth, an Indian Gone with the Wind, is set against the backdrop of India in 1947, when the British moved out shortly after dividing their colony into India and Pakistan. The movie examines the ensuing violent turmoil through the eyes of seven-year-old Lenny-Baby (Maia Sethna, making an impressive acting debut),…
Luc Besson, director of La Femme Nikita, The Professional, and The Fifth Element, is not the first name that would leap to mind to helm a biopic of Joan of Arc. Sure, he’s French, and sure, most of his films have women/girls as protagonist or savior, but this is a…
The spirit of Fellini hovers over Train of Life, the third so-called Holocaust comedy to come down the pike. Far superior to either Life Is Beautiful or Jakob the Liar, the French-language production has a silliness and a buffoonish humor reminiscent of Fellini’s Amarcord and Roma, yet somehow it feels…
The engaging and delightful low-budget feature Where’s Marlowe? began life as an unaired one-hour TV pilot. Somehow director Daniel Pyne and John Mankiewicz, his co-writer, have managed to expand their footage to roughly an hour and 40 minutes without any of the seams showing. That would be an accomplishment in…
The first rule of Being John Malkovich is you do not look at the poster for Being John Malkovich! Sorry to crib from that inferior tale of incredible shrinking men (throw a rock at any multiplex marquee this season — please! — and you’ll hit several), but really, avoid that…
As the Twentieth Century grinds remorselessly to a close, Princess Diana, Monica Lewinsky, and JonBenet Ramsey continue to be held up by the media as signal figures of our time. Yet something tells me that when future historians look back on this period, the bulimic socialite, the kneepad-ready intern, and…
Scotsman Irvine Welsh became a literary sensation in Britain with the publication of his first novel, Trainspotting; and Danny Boyle’s film version of this depressing look at the underbelly of Edinburgh brought Welsh fame in America as well. Now director Paul McGuigan makes his feature debut with an adaption of…
Less a documentary than a memoir, the absolutely enchanting film Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember features Mastroianni reminiscing about his life and career, his extensive travels, the people with whom he worked (directors Fellini, Visconte, De Sica) and, above all, his love for the cinema. You don’t have to be terribly…
Trust Allison Anders and her old running mate Kurt Voss to come up with a piquant, carefully observed movie about tarnished hope, overfed vanity, and half-baked scheming on the treacherous L.A. music scene. They know the territory. In 1988 the ex-UCLA film school classmates wrote and directed Border Radio, one…
Based on his directorial debut, there are three things we can safely say about Antonio Banderas: 1) He’s an actor’s director — he can pick a good cast and coax great performances from them; 2) he knows how to make a good image and where to point the camera; and…
Wes Craven — purveyor of fine horror movies, including A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and the Scream trilogy — has apparently decided to go “legit.” And with Music of the Heart, he has done so with a vengeance. The film’s only death is the result of…
Ever since the mid-’80s release of Emir Kusturica’s first two features — Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and When Father Was Away on Business (which was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar) — Kusturica has been the most internationally visible figure in Yugoslavian cinema (that includes all the former…
Actor Frank Whaley has appeared in more than 30 movies, including Swimming with Sharks and Pulp Fiction. But none of them cuts as close to the bone, I suspect, as Whaley’s debut in the writer-director ranks, Joe the King. Set in the Seventies and carefully described by its maker as…
How can you tell it’s fall? Just as the hurricane season dissipates we get more things to do … indoors. This week the Alliance Cinema and the Absinthe House Cinematheque are unreeling film festivals with offerings for which it’s well worth marking your calendars. On the Beach the third annual…
The Limey.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay by Lem Dobbs. Starring Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Luis Guzman, Melissa George, and Barry Newman.
Welcome to Happy, Texas, the town without a frown. Yes, apparently there really is a Happy, Texas. No, they didn’t actually shoot the movie there. But director/co-writer Mark Illsley’s feature directorial debut is still a fun, funny way to spend an hour and a half of your time. Steve Zahn…
David Fincher needs a hug, the poor bastard. Or possibly a diaper change. Ever since 1992, when he ruined the Alien series with the excrescence of his pointless, senseless third installment, he’s been making the same bratty, obnoxious movie over and over again: gloom, doom, indestructible protagonist, bureaucratic evil, quasi-religious…
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! The repressed Irish-Catholic schoolgirl that Molly Shannon plays on Saturday Night Live is certainly not everyone’s cup of glee. But there’s no denying the tug she exerts on anyone whose past is littered with the dry husks of Latin verbs and memories of nuns swinging big…
Am I a traitor to my gender because I didn’t find this unabashed film about female sexuality erotic, brave, or even — can I say it — interesting? The ironically titled Romance, directed by the audacious French filmmaker Catherine Breillat (36 Fillette), has become something of a cause célèbre wherever…
The British-made Bedrooms and Hallways has all the makings of a break-out hit, even with straight audiences. The second feature from director Rose Troche, this comedy of gay male manners is radically different from her 1993 no-budget debut film about New York lesbian bohemia, Go Fish. And Troche more than…
Take pity on poor Sebastian (Adrian Grenier). As your typical teenager in a small town in upstate New York, circa 1983, he’s already got enough problems: His divorced parents have both remarried, his sister is leaving for college, and life seems meaningless. To top it all off, his stepfather, Hank…
