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Based on an unproduced play written by nihilist director Rainier Werner Fassbinder when he was 19, this is an uncategorizable film that ranges in tone from psychodrama to farce to musical comedy. Though the dialogue is in French, the setting is an unidentified German city in the '70s and is entirely played out in a bachelor pad that reflects all the cheesy decorative touches of that era. A 50-year-old pan-sexual businessman with seduction in mind brings home a young guy who is enthralled by the older man’s virility. The film then picks up six months later when they have become a bickering, game-playing couple whose relationship is punctuated by emotional bursts embedded in long stretches of tedium. Not for all tastes by any means, this will appeal to Buñuelophiles and their ilk.

This horrific, comedic Serbian film traces the lives of Pinki and Kraut , two Belgrade teenagers, between 1991 and 1996, as the pair transit from relatively innocent adolescents to brutal, narcotized thugs. The film is intercut with sound bites from the Yugoslavian civil wars, but the boys are depicted as being completely apolitical and amoral while they perfect their criminal careers as apprentices to a brutal (and hilarious) thug. Their twisted, violent friendship reflects their country's chaotic descent into ethnic cleansing under the racist leadership of Slobodan Milosevic. Gut wrenching, adventurous, and non-judgmental, the film leaves a searing impression and is not recommended to viewers sensitive to intense violence.

The highly original documentary portrait of a 16-year-old Cuban child-woman, the film's kinetic, impulsive structure perfectly reflects its subject who veers between playful childishness and feminine seductiveness. Juliette and her born-again Christian brother lead a tenuous existence near Havana dependent on their extended family for support following the suicide of their mother and the abandonment of their father who lives in the U.S. Because many story lines are abruptly dropped the movie's non-linearity may prove frustrating to some. But for those who will stick with it, what emerges is a telling portrait of adolescence and the anger that comes with abandonment.

Oliver Stone’s film is a portrait of an avaricious stock trader (Michael Douglas as the strangely-named Gordon Gecko) and an ambitious Wall Street securities salesman (Charlie Sheen) who becomes party to his insider trading schemes. It’s a glitzy late ‘80s period piece that maintains its currency thanks to the ongoing greed that permeates all layers of the corporate landscape. As with all his films, Stone foregoes any semblance of nuance preferring to tell us exactly what to think and feel. Still, he extracts good performances from his principles with the exception of the execrable Daryl Hannah.

Director Richard Linklater whose directorial debut was the audacious Slacker, returns with a film that is at least as radical in its conception, and far more daring in its execution. All the action for the film was first shot conventionally using live actors and then, using rotoscoping, converted to animation which shifts dramatically in style throughout the film. The central character is an unnamed young man who while in either the throes of sleep or a coma (it's unclear which) has a succession of encounters with characters who raise all the Big Questions. Though it occasionally grows a bit too talky, the sheer creativity of the images flashing across the screen will keep adventurous viewers engaged, and for the most part, the chatter is engrossing.

Directed by Michael Winterbottom who also made the excellent Welcome to Sarajevo, this is a gritty collection of overlapping story arcs set over a long weekend that involve three generations of a South London family with a particular focus on its three 20-something sisters, each undergoing some form of disintegration. In its bleakness and expert cast the movie reminded me at times of Todd Solondz’ Happiness though this film has a far stronger sense of place, being shot entirely on locations, often with unobtrusive mikes and cameras that capture the alienation and bustle brought on by the glittering city. Despite its heartbreak and frequent immersion into the mundane, the film arrives at its terminus with a glimmer of hope for this family that we have come to care for.

The 1970s were a time of immense change and upheaval, and symptomatic of that time, the formerly pacifist Students for a Democratic Society morphed into the violent Weather Underground. Using well-chosen newsreel footage blended with modern interviews, this documentary provides a strong sense of the forces at work that led to this sea change in at least some of left’s politics and tactics.

Michael Douglas plays a college professor whose writing career is frozen following the enormous success of his first novel. He is beset with troubles: a broken marriage, a rocky affair with his bossâ€™s wife, a murdered dog, a brilliant but depressive/kleptomaniac writing student who tells him lies, and his car that may or may not be stolen. The cast, which includes Frances McDormand as his lover, Toby McGuire as his student, and Robert Downey Jr. as his literary agent, is topnotch. One of the fascinating aspects of the chronic pothead character Douglas plays is the way in which his failure to make choices and discriminate results in his status as a one-hit wonder. He is entirely unable to self-edit his followup book that is running to thousands of manuscript pages; a fact that plays into the terrific finale.

This French costume drama is set in the territory of Saint-Pierre off the Newfoundland coast during the 1850s. A convicted murderer (the Yugoslavian director Emir Kusturica in an impressive debut as an actor) is sentenced to death. However, the sentence cannot be carried out because there is no guillotine or executioner available. An apparatus is ordered from Martinique and during the intervening months before its arrival, the prisoner is given limited freedom by the captain of the fort charged with his captivity (played by Daniel Arteuil.) Juliette Binoche who plays the captainâ€™s wife grows increasingly fond of the prisoner as he shows genuine remorse for his brutal crime and performs several acts of kindness and atonement so that by the time the guillotine arrives, no one is willing to carry out the death sentence. Ultimately a condemnation of capital punishment and an argument for the possibility of redemption, this is quite a powerful film that makes its points quietly.

Based on a 1981 Los Angeles case in which four people were brutally bludgeoned to death in the Hollywood Hills, this is a reconstruction of that lurid story told from two differing points of view. Unlike the classic example of Rashomon in which each witness believes he is telling the truth, the radically different versions here result from two witnesses attempting to exonerate themselves. One of them is John Holmes (played with exceeding sleaziness by Val Kilmer) a 70s porn star notorious for his outsized penis who has fallen on hard times and now has outsized freebase cocaine habit. Lurid in the extreme, this will appeal to folks who found Boogie Nights of interest.

Hollywood generally considers pedophilia and pedophiles box-office poison and if they are depicted at all, it is usually as beastly caricatures. Thus it is impressive that Kevin Bacon agreed to play Walter, a parolee who has been released after a long prison stint for molesting little girls. Because it is a natural reaction to be revolted by pedophiles, director Nicole Kassell doesnâ€™t immediately reveal Walterâ€™s secret, instead choosing to develop his character. But neither does she elicit our sympathy, so when we discover his criminal behavior it is still difficult to root for him despite his stoic struggle to gain some self-esteem. If you come away from this film with conflicted feelings, it is probably proof that the filmmakers have done what they intended.

While the footage of photojournalist James Nachtwey capturing images under extreme circumstances is gripping, it is ultimately the portrait of this quiet, reserved man who daily confronts the ethics of his work that is perhaps the more involving dimension. The central question he faces is whether he is helping to tell his subjects' stories or merely exploiting them. Nachtwey has tremendous personal dignity and it becomes obvious through the film that he is a compassionate man doing a job that would give most of us the sort of nightmares that would render us dysfunctional. Set in various whirlpools of misery including Kosovo, Java, and Rwanda, his images are not easily dismissed. Much of the field filming was done with the use of a micro video camera mounted atop Nachtwey's still camera, a technique that gives us a breathtaking sense of being there.

David Lynch's lovers-on-the-run movie is typically over the top, yet his leading man, Nicolas Cage, is surprisingly reserved, given his usual scenery-chewing predilections. He plays Sailor, an Elvis-obsessed hipster in a snakeskin jacket who takes off with Lula (Laura Dern) following a prison stint for killing a would-be assassin hired by Lula' crazed mother. They are pursued by a corral of creepy crazies with Willem Dafoe perhaps the most notable among a bizarre bunch. Heated sex scenes, febrile photography, and a knock-em-dead soundtrack heat up what is Lynch's favorite theme: innocents struggling for survival and happiness in a world filled with evil. And as with most of Lynch's work, there are plenty of utterly surreal moments that have seemingly little to do with his story and everything to do with our fevered dream-states.

Reminiscent of any number of John Updike stories about cheating spouses, this is actually an adaptation of two short stories by Andre Dubus. Though this territory has been covered exhaustively before, the dialogue is exceptionally smart and the quartet of actors chosen for the leads deliver the goods in spades. Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern play a pair of disaffected 30-somethings. He is a professor who is screwing the wife of his best friend and fellow professor, played by Naomi Watts and Peter Krause respectively. Things heat up when the two other spouses begin an affair. The fireworks are minimal though; this is about closely observed, selfish characters acting badly.

Nicholas Roeg's 70s cult favorite is still a gorgeous film to look at though its allegorical structure is perhaps needlessly mystifying. A teenage girl and her little brother become lost in the vast expanse of the Australian desert are then found by a young aboriginal man, who is in the midst of his walkabout, a coming-of-age odyssey, who then becomes their guide. The film juxtaposes images of civilization with raw and sometimes brutal nature. Camera trickery and flash cutting occasionally detract from the stpry. Fascinating stuff.

Made by the same French team that created the stunning Microcosmos, this is a glorious look at birds and their migrations. The closeup shots of birds in flight were painstakingly captured in a four year-long project that entailed bonding several species with the various terrestrial and aircraft and film crews. Sparsely narrated, this is more about the splendor of flight than a natural history treatise. Shot in locales around the world, itâ€™s a wonderful film for any viewer who has ever thought about how cool it would be to fly.

One of the most misogynistic films Hollywood has ever spawned, this bitch-fest was directed by George Cukor and was based on a highly successful Broadway play by Claire Boothe Luce. The stellar cast includes Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Paulette Goddard and centers around a group of wealthy, spoiled New York society women who live for gossip. The story focuses on the most sympathetic member of the group played by Shearer whose husband is having an affair with perfume counter girl (Crawford). Unique for not having a single man appear onscreen, the snippy dialogue, glitzy fashions, and snazzy sets are a tribute to Hollywood's Golden Era. (Even the numerous dogs and horses that appear in the film are all females and none of the set decorations depict a masculine form either.) Marred by goopy sentiment in a few spots and a very trite Hollywood ending, there is enough wonderfully catty clawing going on here to please anyone fond of this sort of thing.

This is a movie that's easy to dislike with a selfish, passively-aggressive protagonist, one that's been dismissed by critics as a lightweight variation on Five Easy Pieces. To an extent, they're right. What tipped the balance favorably for me was a fine cast, wonderful settings, and the appeal of the road-movie genre, one that I still find alluring. Cal (Billy Crudup) is a successful New York architect who abruptly runs out on his wife and young son (on the latter's birthday no less) and in an ensuing transcontinental trip acts very badly leaving a wake heartbreak and trouble behind him. It has been argued by critics dismissive of the film that Cal remains a cipher, right to the end. I found Crudup's performance full of nuance and suggestion; though there is no dialogue that addresses his inner state, every move, every glance is expressive. Director Bert Freundlich who also wrote the screenplay gets a little heavy-handed with the symbolism in spots. After a particularly nasty bit of treachery, Cal runs his car through a car wash with the window down seeking a good soul cleansing. Yet the supporting cast that includes Julianna Moore in a brief but memorable performance and James LeGros in a bitingly wicked walk-on register strongly. John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom in his novel Rabbit Run has a lot in common with Cal, and anyone who had a shred of sympathy for him, or any man who has felt trapped at one time or another, may find this worthwhile.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
An exhaustive look at the life and work of the German director whose Olympia and Triumph of the Will stand among the most important documentaries in cinema history. Filmed when she was 90, Riefenstahl is still amazingly spry and feisty and her mental acuity seems completely undiminished. In the opening scenes we see her shooting an underwater documentary about marine life, getting up close and personal with formidable aquatic creatures. In a telling shot, after an exhausting day of submerged filming, she hauls her own gear down a jetee accompanied by two younger men who wouldn't dream of offering her, as an equal, a hand. Of course, what is most intriguing in this biography is the director?s relationship with Hitler and the Third Reich. She claims to have been politically naive and unaware of the atrocities of the Nazis'a position that is hard to swallow. She perfunctorily condemns the Holocaust but it becomes clear that her greatest regret in becoming the Nazis? cinematographer is the blackballing she suffered following the war. But undeniably, her skill in bringing the Munich Olympics to the screen with radically innovative camera work that is brought home by many excerpts from the original film clearly points to a woman of enormous artistic and technical virtuosity.

Winter Sleepers aka Winterschlafer
From the innovative director of the kintetic Run Lola, Run, Tom Twyker, comes this arresting story of five characters whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. The film opens with a dizzying series of shots from the perspective of a downhill skiier plunging through a frozen Bavarian Alps landscape. We then meet the primary players: an egocentric, hunky ski instructor and his passive, translator girlfriend; a projectionist who has lost his short-term memory in a military accident; a nurse who would like to become an actress; and a bankrupt farmer taking an ailing horse to the vet. The film weaves their stories together using impressive camerawork and imaginative integration of music, all of which is permeated by an oppressive chilliness reflecting the setting. As with Lola, Twyker?s primary concern is the seeming serendipities that shape lives and events?with the exception of the farmer, his characters are a passive lot who are acted upon rathere than being the actors in their own lives.

Wild Things
This Florida Noire concoction of lies, deceit, sex and doublecrosses has as many twists as a roller coaster. Matt Dillon is a high school counselor who is charged with rape?apparently the result of a conspiracy between a female student from a wealthy family and another girl from the wrong side of the alligator farm. Bill Murray has a wonderful if lesser role as a sleazebag ambulance chaser who defends Dillon. Consider this one a guilty pleasure with its colorful locales, steamy sex scenes, and convoluted plotting. OK, so high art it ain?t, but it nonetheless offers a lot of entertainment of the fluffier variety.

The Wrong Arm of The Law
Peter Sellers is Pearly Gates, a London crook whose gang hits upon a clever
modus operandi: impersonate the cops to rip off other gangster's ill-gotten
booty. This masquerade offends both the crime and punishment establishments
as London cops and robbers alike make an all-out effort to nail Pearly and
his boys. Vintage British comedy with a solid crew of character actors.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
An exhaustive look at the life and work of the German director whose
Olympia and Triumph of the Will stand among the most important
documentaries in cinema history. Filmed when she was 90, Riefenstahl is still
amazingly spry and feisty and her mental acuity seems completely
undiminished. In the opening scenes we see her shooting an underwater
documentary about marine life, getting up close and personal with denizens of
the deep. In a telling shot, after an exhausting day of submerged filming,
she hauls her own gear down a jetty accompanied by two younger men who
wouldn't dream of offering her, as an equal, a hand. Of course, what is most
intriguing in this biography is the director's relationship with Hitler and
the Third Reich. She claims to have been politically naive and unaware of the
atrocities of the Nazis, a position that is hard to swallow. She perfunctorily
condemns the Holocaust but it becomes clear that her greatest regret in
becoming the Nazi's cinematographer is the blackballing she suffered
following the war. But undeniably, her skill in bringing the Munich Olympics
to the screen with radically innovative camera work that is brought home by
many excerpts from the original film, clearly points to a woman of enormous
artistic and technical virtuosity.

Wild Things
This Florida Noire concoction of lies, deceit, sex and double crosses has as
many twists as a roller coaster. Matt Dillon is a high school counselor who
is charged with rape, apparently the result of a conspiracy between a female
student from a wealthy family and another girl from the wrong side of the
alligator farm. Bill Murray has a wonderful if lesser role as a sleazebag
ambulance chaser who defends Dillon. Consider this one a guilty pleasure
with its colorful locales, steamy sex scenes, and convoluted plotting. OK, so
high art it ain't, but it nonetheless offers a lot of entertainment of the
fluffier variety.

Winter Sleepers aka Winterschlafer
From the innovative director of the kinetic "Run Lola, Run" Tom Twyker,
comes this arresting story of five characters whose lives intersect in
unexpected ways. The film opens with a dizzying series of shots from the
perspective of a downhill skier plunging through a frozen Bavarian Alps
landscape. We then meet the primary players: an egocentric, hunky ski
instructor and his passive, translator girlfriend; a projectionist who has
lost his short-term memory in a military accident; a nurse who would like to
become an actress; and a bankrupt farmer taking an ailing horse to the vet.
The film weaves their stories together using impressive camera work and
imaginative integration of music, all of which is permeated by an oppressive
chilliness reflecting the setting. As with "Lola", Twyker's primary concern
is the seeming serendipities that shape lives and events with the exception
of the farmer, his characters are a passive lot who are acted upon rather
than being the actors in their own lives.

Peter Sellers is Pearly Gates, a London crook whose gang hits upon a clever
modus operandi: impersonate the cops to rip off other gangster's ill-gotten
booty. This masquerade offends the crime and punishment establishment as
London cops and robbers alike make an all-out effort to nail Pearly and his
boys. Vintage British comedy with a solid crew of character actors.

This tense thriller scared the pants off audiences in the 60s; I saw it
twice and the second time enjoyed listening to the collective gasps of the
audience during the most frightening moments. Audrey Hepburn is a blind
woman who unwittingly owns a doll filled with heroin which some very nasty
characters are after. It may lose a little clout watched alone on the small
screen, but it should provide some rushes, even after all these years.

Another story about an unlikable couple who goes to war against each other
in an acrimonious divorce in which they can't agree on a property
settlement, with Danny DeVito this time cast as the lawyer who tries settle
things. Though this dark critique on yuppie consumerism overstays its
welcome in the end, there is much to enjoy along the way.

A dark comedy about two aging sisters holed up in the back streets of
Hollywood, each nursing old wounds perpetrated by the other. They are
washed-up silent film stars played by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, the
latter being bound to a wheelchair. Victor Buono is right-on as a slimy
huckster hired by Davis to help her revive her long defunct career. Shot in
stark black and white, this is Hollywood Grande Guignol of a superior sort.
I haven't seen the remake for television of 1991 but can't imagine how it
would improve upon the original-be sure to get the right version.

When it was originally released in 1979, this movie suffered a quick death
at the box office. In 1983 it was reedited, its original ending was
restored and it was readily accepted for what it had become: a striking
black comedy. The brother of an assassinated President undertakes an
investigation to discover the murderer(s). Though there are a number of
elements that don't work, John Huston is fabulously sinister as the wealthy
industrialist father of the two brothers.

From the febrile imagination of avant garde Spanish director, Pedro
Almodovar, this is the hysterical story of a neurotic actress who goes off
the deep end when her long term paramour splits. As in all Almodovar
movies, the story is absurdist, the performances are over the top and the
production is colorful in the extreme. If you find this entertaining,
you'll want to explore some of his other work such as, "Kika", "High
Heels" and "Tie Me Up!, Tie Me Down!"

Here are a couple of movies that deal with political assassinations in
markedly different ways. The first was a pet project of Paul Newman in
which he stars as a cynical drifter who takes a job as a DJ at an
ultra-conservative radio station in New Orleans. Buoyed a by a strong
supporting cast, the sinister agenda of the station's owners slowly come to
light. The setting of "Suddenly" is a little town of the same name in the
California hinterlands. The President's train is due to make a connection
there and the Secret Service asks the cooperation of the local sheriff
played by Sterling Hayden. Matters get tense when a psychopathic Frank
Sinatra and a couple of henchmen show up together with a high powered
rifle. Gripping and compact, (it runs just 77 minutes) this was a superior
50s second feature.

Where so many films that deal with coming of age and the angst of the
American suburban experience are littered with maudlin devices, this crafty
little indie flick looks at the place between childhood and puberty with
icy dispassion. Dawn Wiener is a pariah at her Junior High where
schoolmates incessantly taunt her with cries of "Wiener Dog". Though Dawn
is neither likable nor a sympathetic character, somehow we come to identify
with her as a result of the universal experience of being an outsider at
one time of another. Superbly acted by a no-name cast operating in suburban
New Jersey locales that reek of authenticity.

Clint Eastwood directed and starred in this film as a thinly-veiled John
Huston-type director trying to get a movie much like "The African Queen"
made on location in Africa. The Eastwood character becomes sidetracked by
his lust to bag an elephant putting the elaborate production on hold. His
performance as the self-destructive, lusty director is startlingly accurate.

One of John Huston's last films, it is certainly among his quirkiest.
Loosely based on a work by Flannery O'Connor, it concerns a wacko preacher
who forms The Church Without Christ. Told in the best Southern-Gothic
manner, it is a fascinating look at the degree to which obsession can lead
to full-blown madness and mass hysteria.

A terrific nail-biter by French director Henri-Georges Clouzot involves
four down-on-their-luck expats stranded in a godforsaken South American
village who agree to haul a couple of truckloads of nitroglycerine across
300 miles of terrible mountain roads. Breathtakingly tense, the film has a
very twisty denouement. Try to get the 156 minute version; there is a much
chopped-up 105 minute version on tape.

A great little coming of age story set in a British seaside town. A
troubled 16-year-old girl expresses herself through outrageous sexual
behavior without a clue as to the possible consequences. Equal parts comedy
and pathos, the lead role by Emily Lloyd, belying her age, is stunning.

This kooky comedy stars Ruth Gordon as one of the more disagreeable old
ladies you're ever likely to encounter. The title derives from her nagging
question directed at her son over and over about her long-dead husband.
Full of absurd and raunchy humor that has given this movie a long run as a
midnight movie favorite at art houses.

This was made by the guy who directed "This is Spinal Tap" and is an
equally wicked satire though the setting and characters couldn't be more
different. A failed, way-off Broadway director comes to live in a little
mid-western town and stages a very bad musical casting some horrendously
untalented locals. The title comes from the fact that a big NY talent scout
is supposed to come see the debut of the play.

Utterly original film about a high school teacher (Jeremy Irons in another
star turn) who has led an emotionally tumultuous life. Haunted by memories
that interfere with his present, the film takes on fantasy elements as it
develops that are quite arresting.

Bosnian misery circa 1992. Told in a fragmented and jarring style with lots
of newsreel footage intercut with the story of a British journalist who
attempts to rescue a young girl from the madness that engulfs her homeland,
the film leaves a palpable impression while pointing no politicized fingers
in blame for the Yugoslavian tragedy.

Set in Sarajevo during the 50s, it recounts the story of a family trying to
survive when the father is sent away to a political reeducation camp, it's
an affecting mixture of sadness and comedy. Told through the eyes of a
young boy there are a number of fantasy elements which give this film
special qualities.

A modest but entertaining French film involving a Parisienne makeup
artist's search for her missing cat. Though it has a very slender plot
line, the movie's strength is its look at a fast-changing Paris
neighborhood where landlords are tossing out long-standing tenants in the
process of gentrifying their apartments in order to rent them to a more
upscale crowd. In it's own unassuming way it cogently examines the nature
of community and friendships.

Based on the Novalyne Price memoir "One Who Walked Alone", it recounts her
relationship with pulp fiction writer Robert Howard who is perhaps best
known for his Conan the Barbarian character. Their screen counterparts,
Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio do an admirable job playing out their
decidedly oddball relationship. He's dark and brooding but capable of great
charm; she is sunny, feisty and self assured. He is also very hung up on
his mother and frequently spurns Novalyne who is perceived by mom as a
threat to her primacy. Zellweger has great charisma lighting up the screen
with her indefatigable presence. A satisfying antidote to those boilerplate
TomHanks/Meg Ryan romances.

This is a very unusual thriller about a Scottish policeman who goes to a
remote island to investigate the disappearance of a child. He discovers a
pagan community there that is clearly not what it seems to be. Be sure you
get the version that runs 103 minutes; there are other, shorter ones that
have chopped out some of the best footage.

Two down on their luck actors decide to take a long weekend in the country
to escape their incredibly grungy London apartment. Once they arrive at the
dismal country cottage owned by one of the actors' gay uncle, they are
besieged by a series of hilarious problems and misadventures.

Picone is a character tailor made to the talents of its star Giancarlo
Giannini who plays a low budget confidence man who sometimes trips over his
own scams. Riddled with very black humor and hilarious situations.

Based on Robert Stone's novel, "The Dog Soldiers", it is the tale of a
shipment of heroin smuggled from Vietnam to America. Not as mean and tense
as the book, the film nonetheless is well scripted and brings plenty of
suspense and hard-edged characters to the screen. The action scenes are
especially well handled.

Set in 1962 France during the final convulsions of its colonial era in
Algeria, this is an earnest and honest film that looks at the age of
adolesence with none of the nostalgia found in "American Grafitti". The
story focuses on four teenagers; three boys at a boarding school and a girl
who connects in very different ways with all three. In episodic form we
see the quartet confront questions of sex versus love, politics, and
homosexuality. Though the soundtrack is peppered with American pop hits of
the day, this is a far more serious endeavor than most coming-of-age movies
grown on these shores.

Though I can appreciate the brilliance of Ingmar Bergman's films, they
often leave me cold being so bleak in a very particularly Nordic sort of
way. "Wild Strawberries" is different. A professor takes a car trip to
receive an award and the journey, as is often the case in Bergman flicks,
becomes one of self-knowledge. Through the course of the trip we see how
the old man is viewed completely differently by various people in his life
and by the hitchhikers he picks up along the way. Told in flashbacks and
dream sequences, we come to know and understand this reserved old man in a
way rarely made possible in films.

The rotund Charles Laughton playing an irrepressible and misogynistic
British barrister is the biggest plus in this great courtroom-based
comedy-drama. A smart script and terrific plotting from an Agatha Christy
story coupled with a nice performance from Marlene Dietrich in one of her
final films produce a classic of the courtroom genre.

Australian director Paul Cox ("Man of Flowers", "Cactus") has crafted a
small gem in this story of a 78 year-old woman facing death from lung
cancer. Played by Sheila Florance who ironically was suffering from the
same disease during filming and died shortly after receiving an Aussie
academy award, she is a toughminded and free thinking woman with an
overwhelming joie de vivre. Without a hint of the maudlin, the film tracks
the final days of this bright spirit who affects everyone she deals with.
Not nearly as depressing as it may sound, this is a truly penetrating study
of the body, mind and spirit in a woman committed to living life on her own
terms

An excellent adaptation of a John Irving novel that tracks the very
peculiar life of a young man who was the product of a coupling between his
unmarried nurse-mother and a dying serviceman. The movie is full of
fascinating social observations and has a standout cast.

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