Jonathan Rosenbaum

A nearly hour-long video documentary by Sachiko Hamada and Scott Sinkleralternately fascinating and depressing in its intimate details and unsentimental candorchronicling two and a half years in the life of an impoverished extended family camped out in an impromptu shelter on an empty lot in lower Manhattan. One of the most potent documents of its kind (1988). (JR) Read more

Nicole Garcia, an actress who has worked for Jacques Rivette and Alain Resnais, directs Nathalie Baye, an actress who has worked for Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, and most of what’s interesting about this first featurescripted with critic Jacques Fieschi and othersderives from their close collaboration. Baye plays a divorced actress with a faltering career who is allowed only limited custody of her two young children. On a whim she runs off with them for a few days in a stolen car, trying to win back their love. While this doesn’t offer a lot of narrative momentum, Baye often works wonders with her part, and Joachim Serreau and Felicie Pasotti are fine as the two kids (1990). (JR) Read more

John Sayles’s seventh feature (1991, 130 min.), his first in ‘Scope, is a highly ambitious and grimly powerful look at urban corruption, representing a marked improvement over most of his earlier efforts despite his relative lack of skill in directing actors, framing, and editing. Set in the fictional Hudson City, New Jersey, which suggests a combination of Hoboken (where Sayles lives) and nearby Jersey City, the film centers on the troubled son (Vincent Spano) of a successful contractor who gets involved in an attempted burglary, which sets off a chain of events that ultimately involves politicians, policemen, hoods, teachers, street people, and assorted other characters in this densely populated film. Though it depends on an overall orientation that’s about as up-to-date as leftist thinking of the 30s, the film is nonetheless highly persuasive. (The raving street person employed as a choral figure seems straight out of Clifford Odets.) With Tony Lo Bianco, Joe Morton, Angela Bassett, Gloria Foster, and Sayles himself (in a very effective turn as a villain with a perfect New Jersey accent). (JR) Read more

If there’s such a thing as a standard-issue cutesy feminist comedy, this 1991 British picture, directed by Beeban Kidron from a Marcy Kahan script, pretty much fills the bill. The title heroines, played respectively by Saskia Reeves and Imelda Staunton, are lifelong friends who share the same psychiatrist and express their irritation as well as affection for each other as they usher in flashbacks recounting their relationship. There’s nothing really wrong with this pleasant movie if all you’re looking for is a light romp through the subject with inflections that recall Woody Allen, but don’t expect many dividends. (JR) Read more

During the Depression, a sexy orphaned teenager (Laura Dern) from a sharecropper family moves in with a well-to-do southern family (including Robert Duvall, Diane Ladd, and Lukas Haas) to take care of the kids and help with the housework. Adapted by Calder Willingham from his own autobiographical novel and directed by Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), this is a beautifully realized, finely felt period piece with strong characters and nuanced performances (all four of the leads shine) and an acute sense of the diverse incursions that female sexuality makes on southern gentility. While the film may not be fully achieved in every particular–John Heard is a mite awkward as the grown-up son in the film’s framing story–the ensemble playing and the overall attention to detail are first-rate. (Lincoln Village, Water Tower, Norridge, Old Orchard, Webster Place, Ford City) Read more

A woman (Olivia de Havilland) has a breakdown and winds up in a mental hospital in one of the first Hollywood pictures (1948) to deal seriously with the subject of insane asylums. The film was directed by Anatole Litvak, the story adapted by Frank Partos and Millen Brand from a novel by Mary Jane Ward. De Havilland didn’t win the expected Oscar for her performance (it went to Jane Wyman for her role as a deaf-mute in Johnny Belinda), but (if memory serves) this grim drama packs a punch. With Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, and Beulah Bondi. (JR) Read more

A brilliant series of impersonations and comic monologues by Eric Bogosian, performed before a live audience (over nine nights in Boston), and directedfor the most part effectively, though rather fussilyby John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer). Bogosian’s characters, all of them pretty self-absorbed, include a subway panhandler, a vain English rock star, an entertainment lawyer, a New York street tough, a spaced-out posthippie, and a millionaire in a New Jersey suburb. As pointed as these monologues are, one hopes by the end that they’ll all add up to a single statement, but they never quite do; the larger conceptual framework seems to hover in the background, slightly out of focus and never pulled into full clarity. But from moment to moment, this 1991 feature is worth anyone’s time. 96 min. (JR) Read more

A first-rate police thriller (1948) directed by Jules Dassin when he was still in his prime and before he was blacklisted, shot memorably in New York locations. It influenced many other documentary-style thrillers of the period and even launched a TV series. With Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, and Ted de Corsia; both the cinematography (William Daniels) and editing (Paul Weatherwax) earned well-deserved Oscars. 96 min. (JR) Read more

A beautiful movie. Joseph B. Vasquez’s American independent feature focusing on four young friends from the south Bronxtwo of them black (Doug E. Doug, Mario Joyner), the other two Puerto Rican (John Leguizamo, Nestor Serrano)over one long Friday night is so superbly written, acted, and directed that not a single detail rings false. Evocative of early Cassavetes in its sensitivity to what makes its four heroes tick, this comedy drama allows itself only enough plot to make its dramatic points, which proves to be plenty for its purposes. (One can even tolerate the outlandish coincidences involving a couple of female characters because of the insights and developments they make possible.) It’s rare indeed that a commercial picture offers characters with this much substance and understanding (1991). (JR) Read more

Basil Dearden’s 1961 British thriller caused something of a flurry because of its subject: a lawyer (Dirk Bogarde) risks his reputation by tracking down a blackmailer who murdered his former male lover. It’s supposed to be pretty good, too. Scripted by Janet Green and John McCormick; with Sylvia Sims, Dennis Price, Nigel Stock, and Hilton Edwards. (JR) Read more

During the Depression, a sexy orphaned teenager (Laura Dern) from a sharecropper family moves in with a well-to-do southern family (including Robert Duvall, Diane Ladd, and Lukas Haas) to take care of the kids and help with the housework. Adapted by Calder Willingham from his own autobiographical novel and directed by Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), this is a beautifully realized, finely felt period piece with strong characters and nuanced performances (all four of the leads shine) and an acute sense of the diverse incursions that female sexuality makes on southern gentility. While the film may not be fully achieved in every particularJohn Heard is a mite awkward as the grown-up son in the film’s framing storythe ensemble playing and the overall attention to detail are first-rate (1991). (JR) Read more

For the record, Paradise is a town in Michigan where a young married couple whose child has died take in a little boy, who helps them to get over their grief. Mary Agnes Donoghue wrote and directed this remake of Jean-Loup Hubert’s domestically profitable but unmemorable autobiographical French feature Le grand chemin (1987), and while she manages to coax (or at least doesn’t interfere with) decent performances from real-life couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, her dialogue for the little boy (Elijah Wood) and his tomboy pal (Thora Birch) strains credibility at every turn and her direction of them is correspondingly ham-fisteda compounded failure that effectively sabotages the picture. (JR) Read more

Yves Robert’s 1990 follow-up to My Father’s Glory continues his adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s memoirs about his childhood in Provence, with basically the same cast and locations; much of the story concerns Marcel’s passing infatuation with an affected little girl and his family’s visits to a local chateau. Like many sequels, this is a bit of a step down from its predecessor; while the story, narration, and settings still carry a certain charm, the comedy and acting are somewhat broader. With Philippe Caubere, Nathalie Roussel, and Didier Pain. (JR) Read more

A curious little comedy (1991), directed by Michael Schultz (Cooley High, Car Wash) from a script by William M. Payne, about a black youth in Atlanta (a likable debut by T.C. Carson) who gets a job in local TV news. In part a small-scale remake of Network, with a similarly shrikelike, ratings-mad female producer (Blanche Baker) and some funny satirical jabs at white biases in reporting inner-city news, this uneven romp goes over the top as often as not but generally manages to hold one’s interest. With Lisa Arrindell, Nathaniel Afrika Hall, and Loretta Devine. 96 min. (JR) Read more

Two young men (Brian Wimmer and Peter Berg) in flight from the law in 1962 unwittingly travel through time to 1991, where they try to reenter the lives of their relatives and friends in Santa Fe. The first feature by W.D. Richter after The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai is an inauspicious comeback, with a script (by Mark Andrus) that dawdles endlessly in making its points and stumblebum heroes who are often even slower than the lethargic direction in registering them. With Marcia Gay Harden, Colleen Flynn, Peter Gallagher, and Bo Brundin. (JR) Read more