A welcome return to form for director-star Kevin Costner, at least if you appreciate his stubborn brand of cinematic nostalgia (Field of Dreams, Dances With Wolves). A traditional, pastoral Western with wide vistas and consequential violence, Open Range stars Costner and a lively Robert Duvall as cattle-drivers up against a gluttonous rancher. This is a

A sequel of sorts to the 1973 intimate epic Scenes From a Marriage. That Ingmar Bergman picture detailed the breakdown of the seemingly perfect union between Johan and Marianne (Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann), and Saraband reunites them 30 years later. New drama is mined by exploring the relationships among Johan, his son Henrik (by

Despite familiar stars and seasoned writer-director Jean-Jacques Annaud (Enemy at the Gates), this 3-D Imax film still plays like a gimmick, a slight story slapped around neat-o special effects. Val Kilmer and Craig Sheffer play 1930s French pilots risking their lives to deliver mail over the Andes mountains. Sure, the rusty bolts of the rickety

An earnest but awkward drama set against the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, which aimed to heal emotional wounds in post-apartheid South Africa, In My Country can’t overcome the disjointed pairing of its leads: supple French actress Juliette Binoche and strident American star Samuel L. Jackson. She’s a soft natural presence, while he specializes in

This is exactly the kind of stultifyingly studious Bible movie that The Passion of the Christ is a shock-art response to. Often a word-by-word adaptation, The Gospel of John features a narrator who actually tells us “And then Jesus said…” before each line of dialogue. All of it makes for a punishingly redundant translation of

Perhaps the defining moment of Robert Altman’s legendary career. It was here, after all, where Altman’s signature traits were all assembled and perfected: the extensive ensemble cast, the fluid and unforced narrative, the overlapping dialogue that freed the movies from the stilted patter of the stage and injected them with the interrupted babbling of real

This never attains the full weight that its tragic love story demands, yet it’s nothing to scoff at. The filmmakers are going for an epic romance here, one set in the Dark Ages, and the fact that they haven’t delivered a laughable hoot is something of a moral victory. The soapy story, drawn from British

This is the Western from which every other Western – even those that came before it – feels born. Gary Cooper, in the final, grimacing stage of his career, won an Oscar for his portrayal of Will Kane, the outgoing marshal in a small town who is about to start a fresh life with his

Annette Bening bites into the title role – that of a 1930s London stage actress whose personal life is only slightly less dramatic than her theatrical one – as if it will be the last good part she ever gets. The scenery-chewing is a fortunate necessity, considering it only emphasizes the theme of ageism in