Sleepless in Nightmute Sleepless in Nightmute
You may recall Insomnia as a Norwegian film made on a modest budget--do I repeat myself?--about the inner life of a morally compromised police detective. The picture enjoyed a sma...
May 23, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
The Band’s Long Waltz The Band’s Long Waltz
When I first saw The Last Waltz in 1978, I almost walked out, although I was a fan of both director Martin Scorsese and The Band. I admit I was one of the folks whose tickets for...
May 16, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Gene Santoro
The First Webbie The First Webbie
Say what you will against the Hollywood event film, and you can say it twice about Spider-Man. Twice, because this movie has been so successfully pre-sold, mall-booked, cross-m...
May 9, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
The Days of May The Days of May
What date shall I assign to Chris Marker's magnum opus, A Grin Without a Cat? This rugged oak of an essay-film, whose gnarls trace the growth and withering of decades of leftis...
Apr 25, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
African Queen African Queen
Filmmakers in sub-Saharan Africa tend to divide their attention between city life today and village life once upon a time. This rule has its exceptions, of course; but if you're s...
Apr 11, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Oscar Opens the Door Oscar Opens the Door
As Halle Berry elegantly strode to the podium to accept her best actress Oscar, the first for a black woman, she wept uncontrollably and gasped, "This moment is so much bigger tha...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Michael Eric Dyson
Have Car, Will Travel Have Car, Will Travel
If you're in the mood to see great acting, I recommend that you watch Aurélien Recoing get caught in a lie in Laurent Cantet's Time Out. As Vincent, a French management con...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
We’ve Gotta Have It We’ve Gotta Have It
Black filmmakers seize the moment.
Mar 27, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Gene Seymour
Time After Time Time After Time
Let's start with the Morlocks. In the new film version of The Time Machine, the subterranean carnivores are not merely apelike, as in the H.G. Wells novel. They're Planet of the A...
Mar 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
‘Monsoon’ Season ‘Monsoon’ Season
Why, asked my friends and my baffled wife. Why, piped my son. Even the movie critics sitting next to me wanted to know: What perversity drove me to see Hart's War and Rollerball?...
Feb 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans