Paul and Chris Weitz’s About a Boy , from the screenplay by Peter Hedges and Messrs. Weitz, based on the book by Nick Hornby, gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and Read More
I saw About a Boy and Unfaithful back to back with a 102-degree temperature, so my critical perception may, I admit, have been seriously altered. I liked them both. Like I said, I was probably delirious.
Hugh Grant’s well-bred, good-genes charms have been widely noted, but the depth and range of his acting abilities have Read More
I used to say Woody Allen on a bad day was better than everybody else on Sunday, but now I’m beginning to wonder. No amount of admiration for America’s most original and prolific filmmaker can disguise the fact that Small Time Crooks is Woody on a very bad day indeed.
Sure, there are some funny Read More
Pretty Woman, Dopey Guy
Fed up with the Force and sick of cyberspace, I now return from galaxies far, far away to three new films that disprove the assumption that romance is dead at the movies. Notting Hill asks the question, Can a narcissistic, self-absorbed Hollywood movie star who looks like Julia Roberts trash her Read More
Roger Michell’s Notting Hill , from a screenplay by Richard Curtis, turns out to be too wondrously charming and funny as romantic entertainment to be relegated to the role of a strategic adult counter-programming entry in the face of the anticipated child-cult box-office tornado of George Lucas’ ludicrously overhyped Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace Read More
