Search for Fran

Those who have been waiting for the "next Amelie" may have found it with Love Me if You Dare - at least after a fashion. However, in place of the wry sweetness of the film that catapulted Audrey Tautou onto the international stage, this movie is a...

Maybe there's some truth to the assertion that Alice Sebold's novel is unfilmable. After all, if a visionary like Peter Jackson, who crafted a nearly perfect cinematic adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, can't do it, who can? Perhaps the issue i...

Expectations for Lucy based on television commercials and theatrical trailers will result in a skewed and inaccurate representation of the film. This is not, as the marketing department of Universal Pictures would have one believe, a kick-ass supe...

Ah, the dinner party – that wonderful stand-by for so many European films. Over the course of my fifty-plus years on this planet, I have been to my fair share of these (usually tedious) soirees, and none have been anything like the ones pres...

Call it the law of diminishing results. Akira Kurosawa’s 1956 classic The Seven Samurai (the first time this story was made into a movie) is a great film - a contender for one of the best 100 motion pictures of all time. (It’s at #32 on m...

A Man Escaped is widely considered to be among French director Robert Bresson’s greatest achievements (if not his greatest achievement). Along with his other highly-regarded films, Pickpocket and The Trial of Joan of Arc, A Man Escaped emp...

Let me start with a few brief editorial comments about Lars von Trier. Key to understanding my views about Manderlay is my disclosure of a belief that in order to be able to criticize something, you have to have first-hand familiarity with it. Vo...

WARNING! Heavy spoilers ahead! Beginning with the fifth paragraph, this review reveals details about key plot points and the endings of both Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Proceed at your own risk. Although released with a three mon...

Long ago, the concept of "money" was devised as a means by which commerce could be simplified - after all, it's easier to carry around some kind of marker than cows or cattle or bags of grain. As society has evolved, however, so has the way in whic...