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So much has been written about Orson Welles in the last twenty years that it almost feels as though he were a character created by Scott Fitzgerald, a wonderful idea of something worth aspiring to in an attempt to explain a lost moment of time when the United States still felt new. [...]

It’s grim up North.
This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of novelist David Peace, a native of Yorkshire in England, whose series of books about crime and corruption are the base for this excellent trilogy, originally broadcast on the BBC. Peace is a progenitor of pulp, and obvious student of American [...]

Temple Grandin. Now there’s a name that was ready-built for fame and consequence. It’s a name that may only now be entering household use, but Grandin’s influence, both as a professional and as an example to others, has had a significant impact for decades, in this country and elsewhere. Few [...]

The City of Your Final Destination is the first Merchant-Ivory film to be produced after the death of producer Ismail Merchant. As directed by the now 82-year-old James Ivory, City is an actor’s showcase, nominally about a young man attempting to write an authorized biography of a deceased South American writer.

Goodness, the British certainly do hate Tony Blair…
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
There have been any number of political thrillers released in the last few years, the culmination of the ‘lost years’ of America, where the Bush administration, and its allies in England, have come in for a right kicking over [...]

When choosing a graphic novel to adapt into a screenplay, one must choose wisely. The effects of choosing a novel too complex or dry has often shown its rougher side (I’m speaking of films a la The Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Punisher War Zone). Kick-Ass has a simple plot that, though it may [...]

In the history of cinema, there have been few genres that have been as thoroughly examined as the gangster movie. Dating to the early days of silent film, when the German expressionists were likely the first true practitioners of the ‘noir’ aesthetic, there have always been a handful of directors [...]

For this review of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I asked my grandkids, Jack, age 10 and Abbie, age 9, for their input. We all watched it twice and the kids watched the Deleted Scenes in the Special Features. We all really loved this movie. Jack and Abbie liked it because it [...]

Italian cinema was once distinguished for its postwar “neorealism” movement, with films that were shot on location in a stripped down, almost documentary style, exemplified by titles like Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1946) and de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948). Times seem to have changed, though not necessarily for the worse. With a [...]

Stephen Fry may not be a common household name in the United States, but he’s become a much-beloved figure in British popular culture. Something of a popular intellectual and polymath, he’s well-known there as an actor, comedian, author, and director. He had a long comedy partnership with Hugh Laurie (famous here for [...]