Two ladies of a certain age sitting behind me gasped during the opening sequence. The young hero Adam Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) first appears on screen walking toward the camera as his voice-over explains in spectacularly scabrous terms his bewilderment with the universe. Those of us who deal on

The worm turns. Last spring the religious right made such a fuss about the polychrome piosities of Mel Gibson that even card-carrying atheists had to line up to see what all the buzz was about. Every action has its reaction, so now the sanctimonious left has created an even greater fuss about Michae

Reality leaves a great deal to be desired. Reading the morning paper feels like an ongoing suicide pact with the universe, and listening to NPR without several doses of Prozac in hand can threaten one’s tenuous grasp on sanity: Iraq, terrorism, environment, fundamentalism, economy, abuse, AIDS

Why am I writing this? More to the point, why are you reading it? The answer is simple. Everybody has to say something about it, and many of you feel you have to see it. Even before seeing the film—and making it clear that I had not yet seen it—I was badgered into making statements on it

Cold Mountain adds significance to its shopworn narrative with several brilliant scenes that have only marginal relationship to the story line. That is not an altogether damning comment. Jean Renoir, the great French director, once expressed his admiration for American Westerns: “They’re

Whether we love or hate the "Lord of the Rings" films, we have to admire them: they are a monumental cinematic achievement. Shot over 274 days for $281 million and lasting 558 minutes, these films have, at the time of writing and in the United States alone, grossed over $897 million.