Given the formidable challenge of adapting Philip Roth's acclaimed novel to the screen, it's a wonder that The Human Stain retains so much of what makes Roth's novel a masterpiece. As adapted by Nicholas Meyer, Robert Benton's film is inevitably a different animal altogether, and it's wide open to charges of miscasting and thematic diffusion. But at its core, this delicate drama succeeds in ...
History will place an asterisk next to A.I. as the film Stanley Kubrick might have directed. But let the record also show that Kubrick--after developing this project for some 15 years--wanted Steven Spielberg to helm this astonishing sci-fi rendition of Pinocchio, claiming (with good reason) that it veered closer to Spielberg's kinder, gentler sensibilities. Spielberg ...
"A sleepy Vermont town", notes writer-director David Mamet, outlining the plot of State and Main, "gets invaded by a movie company and ... everyone in the town is suborned, polluted, saddened and ruined. So it's a comedy." As indeed it is--and, despite his typically acerbic summary, one of Mamet's most light-hearted films. At times, as in the shyly blossoming romance between screenwriter ...