Stuart Klawans

Film Critic

Stuart Klawans was the film critic for The Nation from 1988 through 2020

The Flounder The Flounder

Long before I'd gone to a theater and lashed myself to a seat, I formed two expectations about The Perfect Storm.

Jul 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Smart and Smarter Smart and Smarter

In Me, Myself & Irene, Jim Carrey bullies a series of small children, gets into senseless fights (on the grounds that "he started it") and reverts hungrily to breast-feeding.

Jun 29, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Columbo This Isn’t Columbo This Isn’t

The first thing I need to explain about Bruno Dumont's Humanité shouldn't have to be said at all. It's that the film is not a whodunit.

Jun 22, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Tea Time Tea Time

Everyone knows you can't film Remembrance of Things Past, so Raúl Ruiz did it.

Jun 15, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

To Catch a Thief To Catch a Thief

As Woody Allen awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into Jackie Gleason.

Jun 1, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Village Idiots, Then & Now Village Idiots, Then & Now

To watch Lars von Trier's The Idiots is to see a dead dog rise and howl at the moon.

May 11, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Circus Minimus Circus Minimus

According to Gibbon, the emperor Commodus spent the early years of his reign "in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful women and as many boys, of every rank and of every province...

May 3, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

On Tyson vs. Downey On Tyson vs. Downey

I was watching Mike Tyson knock Robert Downey Jr. to the floor when the thought popped into my head, "Is this what I want from a movie?" It was a pressing question.

Apr 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Final Cut on Final Solution? Final Cut on Final Solution?

Since you presumably know the basics about the Holocaust--if you don't, I would suggest that a movie review is no place to learn them--I will jump to the main question about The ...

Apr 20, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Semper Fi, But Why? Semper Fi, But Why?

Were I to tell you that Rules of Engagement features a protracted fistfight between Samuel L.

Apr 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

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