Some people really are crazy, but then, crazy is a relative term. Does it apply to someone who feels he might spin off into outer space and never be able to get back down to Earth? Or is it only crazy when you have to cling to the nearest table…

Top Ten of 1999By Andy Klein Film critics are by nature a sour lot, so it is with truly great pleasure that I suggest that 1999 has been the best year for cinema — certainly for American cinema and even for the major studios — in my 15 years on…

It is rare to find a movie that is as accomplished, multilayered, and rewarding as the novel from which it was adapted, but The Cider House Rules is such a film. Directed by Lasse Hallström (My Life as a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), the film displays the kind of…

There is something fairy tale-like but also deeply human about Twin Falls Idaho, a gentle, beautifully realized tale of love and intimacy that marks the feature-film debut of identical twin brothers Mark Polish and Michael Polish. Mark Polish wrote the script, Michael Polish cowrote and directed it, and both brothers…

The joke that opens Jakob the Liar, the new Holocaust comedy (talk about an oxymoron) starring Robin Williams, captures the bittersweet quality — the grim reality mixed with laughter — that the rest of the movie tries and fails to embody. The story takes place in an unidentified Jewish ghetto…

Pretentiousness masquerading as profundity; self-indulgence masquerading as art. The Loss of Sexual Innocence, the dreadful new film from writer-director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, One Night Stand), joins the ranks of the worst films ever made. A statement that may, on the surface, seem harsh and heartless but that will…

David Mamet, famous for his in-your-face characters, brutal and frequently raunchy dialogue, and deliberate, staccato prose, would seem an unlikely choice to write and direct a screen adaptation of British playwright Terence Rattigan’s genteel drama about injustice. But the Pulitzer Prize-winning author (for Glengarry Glen Ross), whose body of work…

Genius can be a terrible, destructive gift. Jacqueline du Pre, the brilliant British cellist who enraptured audiences in the ’60s and ’70s with her musical passion and intensity, lived a life of great renown and acclamation but also one of harrowing loneliness and emotional turmoil. Her story is movingly told…

Even students of English history may have trouble sorting out the palace intrigues and intragovernmental conspiracies that fill Elizabeth, the handsome new production about Queen Elizabeth I’s ascension to the British throne in 1558. With the bewitching Australian actress Cate Blanchett (last year’s Oscar and Lucinda) in the title role,…

A riveting but darkly disturbing thriller, Apt Pupil isn’t easy to sit through. The subject matter itself proves deeply unsettling, while two brief acts of sadism are so horrifying as to be unwatchable. And yet this brutal film borders on the brilliant. Beautifully structured and edited, with a chilling central…

The idea of destiny — especially the notion that two people are fated to meet and fall in love — is a load of crap, but a surprising number of people buy into it. Probably for that reason it has proven to be a fairly popular component in movie romances,…

Theresa Connelly’s feature directorial debut, Polish Wedding, is a complete misfire. What is meant to be a somewhat farcical — but also fairy tale-like — midsummer night’s sex comedy instead ends up a tedious, uninvolving affair, burdened with a slim premise, grating characters, and poorly realized humor. The film concerns…

Judging by the number of uninspired and derivative films we see these days, creating something truly fresh and imaginative on screen is more difficult than turning a pumpkin into a carriage. But that’s exactly what director Andy Tennant and his marvelous cast and crew do in Ever After, the most…

Walt Disney Pictures has a smart and highly profitable business strategy: Rerelease the studio’s proven hits every seven years or so, thereby reaching a new generation of kids — and making another tidy bundle of dollars in the process. Well, this time around the Mouse House has decided to remake…

The winds that sweep across the Sahara kick up ferocious sandstorms. Dunes change shape by the hour, flying particles blind the eye, and all sense of direction and reason can be lost. In such disorienting surroundings, reality and hallucination converge, and the most inexplicable, unimaginable events can occur. Passion in…

Rule number one: When crafting a thriller, make sure the audience can relate to, identify with, or empathize with at least one of the characters. Rule number two: The characters’ motivations must be clear. Fail in either area — or, worse, in both — and you end up with a…