Every winter, Hollywood releases its annual quota of films for grown-ups, just in time for the Oscar nominations. It’s never more than a dribble, and it never lasts for long—the dumb stuff is always back in the theaters by late January. But for those adults who still go to the movies from time to time, … Read more
A lot of folks were surprised when Steven Soderbergh, the hot American director of the moment, chose to follow up Traffic, perhaps the most critically acclaimed film of 2000, with a remake of Ocean’s Eleven, among the least critically acclaimed films ever made. Whether or not you remember the original—and there’s no earthly reason why … Read more
Amid the reams of journalistic verbiage about how the film version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone broke every box-office record in the history of the universe, I ran across the odd report of public protests by religious types who believe the world’s most popular movie to be a tool of Satan. I knew … Read more
“Get up, son,” my mother said, tapping softly on the door of the bedroom of my childhood home in Missouri. “Liz just called from New York. She says to turn on the TV. It’s something about an airplane hitting the World Trade Center.” I came awake a split-second later, my head full of memories. I … Read more
Good art, like grace, sometimes comes in peculiar-looking packages. Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World, a screen version of the underground comic book by Daniel Clowes, is a bleakly melancholic comedy about a pair of foul-mouthed teenage girls. You wouldn’t expect it to be much more than a symptom of the degraded state of postmodern American life—but … Read more
One by one, the blockbuster movies of 2001 are proving to be giant squibs. First came Pearl Harbor, whose only resemblance to Titanic (1997) was the speed with which it sank. Then came A.I., which proved that not even Steven Spielberg’s platinum-plated name is shiny enough to make moviegoers sit through two and a half … Read more
So far, this year’s films have been so wretched that even the critic of Variety, the unofficial house organ of Hollywood, broke down and complained in print. As for me, I’ve been watching The Sopranos, marveling at the graphic casualty reports that trickle in from the front, and reminding myself that the great thing about … Read more
The surprising thing about movies is not that most of them are stupid, but that any of them are smart. This blinding flash of insight came to me not long ago as I sat in my neighborhood movie house and watched a more than usually bone-headed reel of trailers advertising this summer’s coming attractions. I … Read more
I don’t believe in God, but I definitely believe in icons,” a famous choreographer once told me. So does Hollywood. Take Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, the third installment in the continuing saga of Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, the psychiatrist-turned-serial-killer who “eats the rude” as part of his private campaign to elevate America’s aesthetic tone. As … Read more
When I was in college, I went out a couple of times with a Seventh-Day Adventist who took me one Sunday to a church supper. As we strolled into the meeting hall, she whispered nervously, “Some of us are vegetarians, and you’re going to see some strange stuff here.” Most of the food I saw … Read more
Most Hollywood movies remind me of Hugh Kenner’s definition of conceptual art: Once described, it need not be experienced. Nice middle-class white ballet student transfers to an inner-city high school, where she meets a bright young black dude who knows all the latest hip-hop moves. Need I say more? As soon as you’ve heard the … Read more
The cultural elite holds happy endings in contempt. Christians know better, but they also know that not every story ends happily and that the road to such endings may be frighteningly bumpy. They know, too, that not all happy endings are self- evident. To a mortal eye, grace can look very much like agony and … Read more
I’m vacating this space for the rest of the year—I have a book to finish— and the prospect of not seeing any movies (well, many movies) for the next few months has put me in a reflective frame of mind. Not that I spend much time reflecting on the movies I’ve reviewed for Crisis in … Read more
Movies look real. This is the source of their power: they seem to show us life as it is and people as they are. Yet I can’t think of the last time I saw a hit movie, or a popular network TV series, in which anyone went to church. We see ordinary people at work, … Read more
So far as I know, the natural law contains no clauses specifying the maximum length of movies. Neither did Shakespeare have anything particularly useful to say on the subject, his passing mention of “the two hours’ traffic of our stage” having nothing to do with the actual playing time of Romeo and Juliet. The reason … Read more
I knew when I started writing this column that I would someday find myself reviewing a film about a priest who falls in love—though I never thought it would be with a lesbian. It is a rule of contemporary film-making that whenever a Catholic priest figures in a movie for more than two minutes, he … Read more
All movies are documentaries: They show us actual people in seemingly real places, whom we therefore assume are behaving more or less realistically. This expectation is so powerful that it gives filmmakers a surprisingly large amount of room in which to maneuver, thus making possible such peculiar phenomena as teen flicks in which everybody is … Read more
The Holy See recently hosted a seminar on film in the 21st century at which Pope John Paul II, urging moviemakers to do right by religion, informed the participants that their work should seek to demonstrate man’s “natural propensity for peace and harmony with God and other men.” This rosy-hued suggestion led me to reflect … Read more
Stephen Sondheim, one of whose songs is called “Sorry-Grateful,” says that ambivalence is “my favorite thing to write about, because it’s the way I feel, and I think the way most people feel.” That may be the way people feel on the East Side of Manhattan, but I suspect the average movie-goer would be rather … Read more
[EXT. RANCH HOUSE—DAY] Tight shot of a door opening to reveal a pleasant-looking MAN in a business suit, briefcase in hand. (Soundtrack: birds chirping.) PULL BACK to show the neatly painted house, well-kept lawn and brand-new station wagon. It’s a sunny morning in suburbia. As the man glances at his watch and starts down the … Read more