The film City of Ghosts, cowritten and directed by Matt Dillon, appears to be a remake of The Third Man (1949), with a man arriving in a strange city to pursue something lucrative with someone notorious, but Dillon’s story is far more gruesome. In the early part of the film, a hurricane has devastated many homeowners in […]

What is the psychological effect of being laid off permanently? Statistics show a high correlation with suicide in many countries, but Spain has a low suicide rate. Accordingly, the film Mondays in the Sun (Los lunes al sol), directed by Fernando León de Aranoa, provides more complex answers about some 200 dockworkers in Vigo, Galicia, who,

In Merci Docteur Rey, directed and written by Andrew Litvack, two dead bodies threaten to bring reality to the fantasy lives of several narcissistic characters. The first dead body emerges quite early in the film. Twenty-three-year-old Thomas Beaumont (played by Stanislas Merhar), who has been paid 1,500 francs to hide in the closet of a Paris

The success of CNN is due not just to the vision of Ted Turner but to what Live from Baghdad identifies as the “guts and judgment” of Robert Weiner, who during the months leading up to the Gulf War of 1991 made a genuine broadcasting breakthrough which made CNN the world’s premier station for late-breaking news. Live from

When Phone Booth begins, a voiceover tells filmviewers that a particular phone booth near Times Square (53rd & 8th) will be removed the following day, presumably outmoded in the modern age of cellphones. Indeed, we next observe publicist Stewart Shepard (played by Colin Farrell) talking on his cellphone with various clients as if he were some sort

Where did all the “Valley girls” go? In the 1970s, a linguistic phenomenon emerged in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles at schools and newly opened shopping malls, when spoiled Gentile girls peppered their conversations with such words as “bitchin,” chased boys, and otherwise spent their time idly while their narcissistic parents were too

  A street-smart Czech and a film-crazed Russian, the master criminals of 15 Minutes, land at JFK airport with barely a penny in their pockets, hungry to collect a payoff from a crime committed in Eastern Europe. Emil Slovak (played by Karel Roden), nevertheless, has a game plan–commit wild crimes, get a million dollars in the

What are the “best interests of the child” and who decides? In I Am Sam, directed and cowritten by Jessie Nelson, thirtysomething Sam (played by Sean Penn) has the intelligence of a seven-year-old but works as a cheerful and sweet busboy at Starbucks; he hangs out with his best friends, other mentally retarded men. Though unmarried,

FROM HELL TRIES TO TRACK DOWN JACK THE RIPPER AS AN AGENT OF QUEEN VICTORIA In 1888 Jack the Ripper terrorized the East End of London. At least five prostitutes plying their trade late at night in Whitechapel had their throats slit, and in four cases their bodies were mutilated. Thirteen other victims have been

A GENERAL LEADS A PRIVATE WAR IN THE LAST CASTLE A three-star general pleads guilty in a court-martial and is sentenced to ten years at Leavenworth in The Last Castle, directed by Rod Lurie. The offense is to disobey orders and ignore intelligence by authorizing a foray in Burundi that results in the death of