The School of Flesh, the English translation of the film L’Ecole de la Chair, is based on a novel not yet translated into English by Yukio Mishima, whose gay proclivities came to an end though suicide in 1970. The film, released in France in 1998 and shoehorned into art theatres in the United States in […]

In the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love, Queen Elizabeth is played by Judi Dench, who won an Oscar® for best supporting actress. The premise of the film is much less serious than Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen, namely, that Shakespeare must have written love sonnets and the play Romeo and Juliet because he was himself in

Many films have been made about Queen Elizabeth. Our images have perhaps already been shaped by the portrayal of Bette Davis, who made the queen out to be almost a tough Lesbian. Along comes sensitive Cate Blanchett, who shows how an unprepared not-so-virgin princess achieved maturity as a queen through bitter experience. In Shekhar Kapur’s

The Rage: Carrie II, directed by Katt Shea, is a sequel to Brian De Palma’s 1976 film Carrie. Now in 1999, with a female as director, the plot changes cleverly, though the tagline “Looks can kill” sounds similar. Amy Irving, who appeared in the first Carrie, now plays a school counselor named Sue Snell who

The film Gods and Monster, which won an Oscar for best screenplay, portrays the true story of the last days of James Whale, the director of the first few Frankenstein movies, based on Christopher Bram’s book Father of Frankenstein. The title is a line from the film Bride of Frankenstein, one of many clips from

Hilary and Jackie is the story of two sisters who were pushed by parents to become child prodigies—Hilary du Pré in playing the flute, Jacqueline du Pré as a ‘cellist. During an early life devoted to music, however, neither child reached maturity, and they lacked any identity apart from their musical personas, so they bonded

Patch Adams begins in a mental institution, where the protagonist (played by Robin Williams) realizes that much sickness is rooted in one’s lack of perspective on life, and  humor can thus provide curative healing powers. He then enrolls in medical school to bring his newly found wisdom into practice. However, the medical establishment favors keeping

At First Sight tells the story of Shirl Jennings, who became blind when afflicted at age 3 with polio, meningitis, and cat-scratch fever. Shirl (played by Val Kilmer), nevertheless, appears to have adjusted happily to life as a blind person, and he enjoys the profession of masseur. In the film, a busy architect (played by

Historically-based films generally have a solid character, as the scriptwriters and actors try to be authentic. Just before World War I, a 13-year-old schoolboy was expelled from a British military school after being accused of theft and forgery, but when he insisted on his innocence, his banker father sacrificed all to gain an acquittal, thereby

Clint Eastwood has not given up acting as an eccentric do-gooder who gets the job done even if nobody respects him. In True Crime, in the role of aging Oakland newspaper reporter Steve Everett, he saves Frank Beachum, a black man (played by Isaiah Washington) from the gas chamber by discovering clues ignored by the police