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Howard Hawks directed To Have and Have Not (1944), adapted from Ernest Hemingways novel by amongst others, William Faulkner. Famous for the on- and off-screen chemistry between well-established star Humphrey Bogart and newcomer Lauren Bacall, the movie relocates Hemingways setting in Cuba to Martinique, and the plot takes
Perhaps not immediately evident from its title, the trans in Transamerica is more to do with crossing sexual spaces than national ones, though a touching comedy road movie this certainly is. Desperate Housewives Felicity Huffman (also nominated for Best Actress Oscar 2006) plays Bree, a pre-operative male-to-female
Odd that a screwball Christmas comedy should be released in late February, but the ways of distributors are many... This formulaic fish-out-of-water at a family reunion comedy is perhaps saved from total inconsequence by a sensitive performance from Diane Keaton. But Sarah Jessica Parker is far more
A remake for the Enron generation of the 1977 crime comedy with Jane Fonda and George Segal, recycled with the same limpness in 2005 with Tea Leoni and Jim Carrey. The comic possibilities of a prosperous middle-class couple hitting hard times and turning to crime in 2000 obviously elude
From the Moment they met, it was Murder! Billy Wilders 1944 classic film noir Double Indemnity stars the diabolical Barbara Stanwyck as the femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, who lures insurance salesman Walter Neff (the under-rated Fred MacMurray) into an insurance scam to benefit from her husbands death. Raymond Chandler
Judi Dench again, and this time nominated for the Actress in a Leading Role Oscar 2006 for Mrs Henderson Presents, is Laura Henderson, founder and manager of the famous Windmill Theatre that boasted We Never Closed throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Never closed, despite the Blitz and the Lord Chamberlains (
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. It is also true that the Jane Austen novel is in want of a new screen adaptation (surprisingly, this is only the second since Laurence Olivier and
Woody Allens first UK film and his 40th over all, Match Point promised to be a welcome return to form mostly lost since Crimes and Misdemeanours in 1989. But, for British reviewers at least, the movie has proved to be disappointing, described as laboured, unconvincing and a misfire. Centering on
In Proof, Gwyneth Paltrow gives a memorable reprisal of her stage role (in the West End with the same director, John Madden) as Catherine, the daughter of a mad mathematician (Anthony Hopkins), who is forced to come to terms with her late father’s legacy, possibly including his insanity,
Transposing Graham Greenes London entertainment A Gun for Sale to characteristic noir territory in L.A. and San Francisco, Frank Tuttle makes This Gun for Hire a resonant ex-ploration of the last days of hitman Philip Raven (Alan Ladd). Another disturbing, hard-boiled, solitary and embittered figure, he is
George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck was well-received at last year’s Venice Film Festival. His black-and-white film is about renowned broadcast journalist Ed Murrow and his bold stand for press freedom against Cold War paranoid Senator Joseph McCarthy during the
If the cult horror-thriller Saw was an expertly handled sadistic gore fest of more than usually revolting ingeniousness (which also took $100 million at the box office), Saw II is the sadly inferior sequel. Using a similar premise a collection of victims subjected to torture in a booby-trapped
Performance/installation artist Miranda July puts herself at the centre of her own low-budget independent movie, a first feature that won the Camera dOr at Cannes 2005 and a Special Jury Prize for originality of vision at Sundance. Whimsical and quirky, frank and non-judgmental about sex and adolescent
I hope they dont hang you, precious, by that sweet neck... The chances are youll get off with life. That means if youre a good girl, youll be out in 20 years. Ill be waiting for you. If they hang you, Ill always remember you. Thus spake Sam Spade (Humphrey
Probably best described as a meditative thriller, Steven Spielberg’s Munich tells the story of the aftermath of the 1972 Black September terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The Israeli government’s response to the atrocity was revenge, and Spielberg’s lengthy movie follows
Woody Allens first UK film and his 40th over all, Match Point promised to be a welcome return to form mostly lost since Crimes and Misdemeanours in 1989. But, for British reviewers at least, the movie has proved to be disappointing, described as laboured, unconvincing and a misfire. Centering on
Continuing the Femmes Fatales season, Raoul Walshs They Drive By Night (1940) features the fascinating Ida Lupino as the femme, as in so many of these classic 1940s B-movies, Humphrey Bogart. Set in the world of Los Angeles truckers, Walsh examines both the squalid and the noble motives of
Woody Allen’s first UK film and his 40th over all, Match Point promised to be a welcome return to form mostly lost since Crimes and Misdemeanours in 1989. But, for British reviewers at least, the movie has proved to be disappointing, described as laboured, unconvincing and a misfire.
Despite its dangerously dumb title The 40 Year Old Virgin is not the crude sex comedy you might expect. Steve Carell plays Andy Stitzer who suffers from the unfortunate affliction described in the title, and the world being what it is, has to find an urgent cure with a little
As an adaptation from one of the novellas in C. S. Lewiss classic series, Disneys The Chronicles of Narnia is as faithful as it is necessary to be with material that is sacred to its devotees, though Shrek director Andrew Adamson is perhaps disadvantaged by the string of previous fantasies
The first of a series of dangerous women in this chronological Femmes Fatales season featuring a different actress in the role each week, The Devil is a Woman (1935) stars Marlene Dietrich as the fatale Concha Perez in Josef von Sternbergs carnivalesque story of seduction and malice. The directors personal
Memoirs of a Geisha takes the familiar Cinderella story and locates it in the oriental setting that may or may not have existed in pre-war Japan. Widely criticised for not showing the reality of the geisha culture, the film, adapted from the novel by Arthur Golden, tends to melodrama,
Peter Jackson, undisputed master of the fantasy fiction genre, is back with his CGI-enhanced remake of King Kong, a version of the story that cannot fail to impress, even though at 3 hours in length, it may be something of a special effects marathon. Freudian interpretations aside, the human
