Domestic Disturbance, directed by Harold Becker, is yet another variation on the theme of a stranger who comes into a small town, impresses the townspeople, but has a notorious past that ultimately catches up with him and thereby brings havoc to some of the best citizens in the community. The mythical town in Domestic Disturbance […]

The Central Intelligence Agency has a reputation of failure in the eyes of many observers. The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 is notable in that regard. Who would imagine that such a sorry episode would be the subject of comedy? In Company Man, directors Peter Askin and Douglas McGrath try mightily to find a

  Teenagers encountering their first gay experiences are destined to be frustrated, or so we discover in Come Undone (Presque Rien), directed by Sébastien Lifshitz, a film with many flashforwards to a time when the lead male actor tries to commit suicide (presumably the basis for the French title, which literally translates “almost nothing”). Chronologically, the

The irreverent The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) provoked so many pickets that filmmakers have been reluctant to pose religious hypotheticals, or so it seemed until a similarly daring The Body was released one week after Good Friday. The hypothetical posed in The Body, from a novel of the same title by Richard Ben Sapir, is “What would happen if

  The entire month of August is a time for vacation in Italy, as we are reminded in the beginning frames of Bread and Tulips (Pane e Tulipani), directed by Silvio Soldini. Fortysomething housewife Rosalba (played by Licia Maglietta) is on a tour with her husband Mimmo (played by Antonio Catania), who sells plumbing fixtures, and

Is a preference to be affectionate toward persons of the same sex genetic or learned? Chuck&Buck, directed by Miguel Arteta, poses that question at the point where self-realization is likely to occur–the early teens. Although they were best friends as preteens and fooled around as early teens, when the film begins Buck O’Brien (played by Mike

  The civil war in Somalia in the early 1990s caused a shortage of food that caused the death of some 300,000 persons. In an attempt to stop the famine, the United Nations dispatched food aid, but forces loyal to a local warlord, Mohammed Farah Aidid monopolized distribution in the port city of Mogadishu to

In Big Eden, a thirtysomething Montana artist named Henry Hart (played by Ayre Gross) who moved to New York a decade or more ago to achieve his career goals and enjoy gay life, is suddenly informed that his grandpa has had a stroke. As his grandpa is his only living blood relative, he decides to fly

Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is one of the safest cities in the world for a tourist. The free feeling as one walks the streets of the City of Angels is only marred by overzealous pimps in the Patpong section of the city. Gun control is very strict, with licenses issued for gun ownership only

Betty is about a film star, Betty Monday (played by Cheryl Pollak), who one day drives to Palm Desert to rent a house from a retired couple in order to find a life for herself. In so doing she fails to report for work on a $70 million Christmas movie. The reason is that she is