Breathless: A Blueprint for the New Wave

Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Photo: Les Films Impéria The kind of movie you see in film school and then you make a decision – either I love it or…

Beauty and the Beast 

When her father (Kevin Kline) is taken prisoner by a beast (Dan Stevens) inside a huge, wintry castle, Belle (Emma Watson) offers herself in exchange for his freedom. Another live-action…

Looking 

One of the most explicit TV series ever made about gay men followed a group of friends in San Francisco, with focus on the 29-year-old game designer Patrick (Jonathan Groff)…

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 

At thirty, Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos) is losing hope that she’ll ever meet a man… but then a school teacher (John Corbett) enters her life; the only problem is that…

Titanic: A Wreck Comes Alive

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Photo: 20th Century Fox Twentieth Century Fox wasn’t sure about letting James Cameron make an epic movie about the 1912 sinking of Titanic – especially…

Annie Hall: This Is 40

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen. Photo: United Artists In the film’s first scene, Woody Allen as Alvy Singer addresses his audience, letting us know that he recently turned 40 and…

Downton Abbey: An Empire in Change

Photo: ITV I’ve lost count of how many times various actors have come to my country to promote a new season of Downton Abbey. It hasn’t always been the biggest…

Out of Africa 

In the 1910s, Karen (Meryl Streep) marries a Danish nobleman (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and they move to British East Africa to start a farm; she also befriends a handsome big-game…

The Apartment: Executive Privilege

Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Photo: United Artists When Billy Wilder saw Brief Encounter (1945), where Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard have their rendezvous in an apartment belonging to a…