I’ve said before (but not, I think, on this blog), that the modern French cinema consists of two kinds of movies: awful romantic comedies and fantastic thrillers. I stand by this reduction without hesitation. But it does require just a bit of tempering; for one thing, it completely ignores the recent emergence of what appears […]

If I am not honest in my opinions, then I am of no use to anyone. This means that sometimes I am obliged to say things that are embarrassing to admit, and tonight I am going to say one of those things: I thought that Blades of Glory, starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder, was […]

I’ve been as loud as anyone in my distaste for the recent subgenre, “hideous African tragedies viewed primarily in terms of how they affect white people,” and yet here we have Shooting Dogs (bizarrely renamed Beyond the Gates for the US, a worse title by every measure that isn’t marketing), a story about two white […]

In a different world, I think what I would have primarily taken away from The Lookout is how thrilling it is to see a crackerjack screenwriter like Scott Frank (he who adapted Get Shorty and Out of Sight, and co-adapted Minority Report) get a chance to direct, and do a damn fine job of it. […]