Over the course of some 30-odd years, David Cronenberg has displayed a highly individual (and quite appropriate) penchant for the bizarre in a number of memorable, and even stylish, horror films. His peculiar combination of the mechanical and the biological distinguishes his work from that of most of his fellow toilers in the dark and […]
George Grella
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Small towns, small lives, small movie
Such recent movies as The Good Girl, One Hour Photo, and About Schmidt suggest that the cinema can still connect with the drab underside of American life, sounding the muted note of defeat and despair that accompanies the grand public trumpet of confident optimism and exuberant expansion. Our nostalgia for a past that may never […]
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Reach out and shoot someone
Joel Schumacher’s new thriller, Phone Booth, illustrates once again the weird and ambiguous relationship between popular cinema and its temporal context. Originally scheduled for release many months ago, the picture disappeared, at least for a while, until the manhunt for the Washington, D.C.-area sniper ended with the apprehension of the suspects. The distributors apparently believed, […]
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Mysteries in the jungle
Although presumably a mere accident of production and distribution schedules, the appearance of John McTiernan’s new film, Basic, demonstrates the American film industry’s uncanny penchant for seizing the moment. Just in time to jump on the war wagon, Hollywood once again releases a military flick. The movie, however, suggests another, not entirely unknown aspect of […]
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A messy stew from Stephen King
The latest in the unending series of films adapted from the Stephen King novel factory employs a grab-bag, or perhaps a garbage-can, approach to the author’s usual subjects, resulting in an extraordinary and virtually uncontrollable farrago of horror. Dreamcatcher combines the nostalgia and sentimentality of Stand By Me with the psychic phenomena of, say, The […]
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The envelope, please
Despite all the breathless reporting of the nominations, and all the learned speculation about who and what will win one of those gleaming art deco statuettes known as Oscars, students of the cinema should understand that like most such contests — from Miss Artichoke all the way up to the Nobel Prize — the Academy […]
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One man and a knife against the world
As his new movie, The Hunted, suggests, William Friedkin’s career continues to wander into bizarre areas of subject and character and, not surprisingly, to display a flagrant and really quite inexplicable inconsistency. He has directed some excellent and influential motion pictures, most notably The French Connection and The Exorcist; in addition to some almost equally […]
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Hollywood enlists again
Although the new movie Tears of the Sun describes a fictional incident, its plot resembles some actual events from recent history closely enough to exhibit a certain degree of contemporary relevance. Like Behind Enemy Lines and Black Hawk Down, it deals with a small, discrete military engagement within the context of a larger series of […]
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The ultimate cop flick
Somewhere in its mutation from the mystery story to the cop flick, the familiar movie about the detective’s search for a criminal changed not only its protagonist and his methods, but also its moral focus. The transition probably began three decades ago with the almost simultaneous appearance of some powerfully influential motion pictures: William Friedkin’s […]
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As sure as death and Texas
In his new movie, The Life of David Gale, Alan Parker transforms the now trite and artificial situation of the condemned inmate on death row into a complex work that suggests several different cinematic possibilities and provides a number of twists and surprises. Not surprisingly, the film deals at length with the death penalty, […]
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Vietnam before our war
Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, published in 1955, has probably aroused more controversy than any of his other many works of fiction. In dealing with the first tentative intervention of the United States in Vietnam, at a time when the French fought their hopeless colonial war, the author displayed both uncanny prescience about the […]
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Something different from Almodóvar
The career of the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar has followed a generally upward path, beginning with his first international success, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, back in 1988 (though made in 1986, his Matador appeared in this country only after the positive reception of Women). He has produced a steady flow of […]
