The Importance of Being Earnest, based on the 1895 play by Oscar Wilde, has been brought to the screen by director Oliver Parker. The movie follows the story, though with a few changes. Three love affairs blossom, run afoul of social mores of the era, and ultimately are consummated. Wilde was trying to make fun […]
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Those who remember the television series I Spy starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp from 1965-1968 will hardly recognize the 2002 spoof with the same title, starring Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson and directed by Betty Thomas. The film is also a spoof on this year’s Bad Company, starring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, a plot that I
What do a novelist, a homemaker, and a poet have in common? The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry, poses the question and gives an implicit answer–sensory overload leading to clinical depression. The novelist is Virginia Woolf (played by Nicole Kidman), the homemaker is Laura Brown (played by Marianne Moore), and the poet is the latter’s son
Gay life in Japan used to be entirely in the closet. Okoge (1992), for example, depicted formidable obstacles blocking acceptance of gay people. In contrast, Hush!, directed by Ryosuke Hashiguchi, portrays an open recognition of the legitimacy of gay life, though with twists and turns that are uniquely Japanese. When the story begins, we see Naoya (played
The Hot Chick, directed by Tom Brady, begins with a 50 BC scene in Abyssinia in which a betrothed princess avoids an unpleasant marriage by giving her special earrings to her slave, thus transferring identities. The next scene switches to four catty, narcissistic, and naughty high school cheerleaders, in which the prettiest is Jessica (played
If we could stop press on the Kamasutra’s publication, then we could add the many positions assumed in erotic lovemaking within Herapurple: Devil Goddess, a Korean film directed by Chung Gil-Chae. The film operates at two levels. The first level involves Haerim (played by Chung Kim), a middle-aged woman who feels so much mental turmoil that
When a man has both a wife and male lover, loving the latter more than the former, convention dictates that he maintain the appearance of normal heterosexuality while making up stories so that he can spend as much time as possible with his true love. In the Italian film His Secret Life (Le fati ignoranti), directed
The plot of Heaven, directed by Tom Tykwer, revolves around a woman who kills five people and then evades criminal responsibility. Schoolteacher Philippa (played by Kate Blanchett), who was born in England but lived most of her life in Italy, is the murderess. In the beginning of the film, she makes a bomb to blow up
Frida, directed by Julie Taymor and based on the biography of the same title by Hayden Herrera, is the story of a Mexican artist who not only was married to Diego Rivera (played by Alfred Molina) for more than twenty-five years but also was an artist in her own right. Similar to last year’s Bride of
Most New Yorkers doubtless think of their city as the very embodiment of advanced civilization–as a small village that grew continuously and gloriously over nearly four centuries since the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was founded in 1626. Gangs of New York, directed by Martin Scorcese, who began preproduction of the film some twenty-five years ago,