items tagged with The English Patient

A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT

Its love scenes are like Titanic meets The English Patient, its battle scenes suggest what might happen if the Coen brothers remade Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and yet A Very Long Engagement is enormously enjoyable; this mad amalgam of genres and styles seems almost tailor-made for the talents of its director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

IN THE CUT

Jane Campion’s erotic thriller In the Cut is, for the most part, an unholy mess, but as messes go, it’s certainly one of 2003’s more intriguing ones.

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

You may have heard that Ang Lee’s latest work, the historical-drama/romance/martial-arts/action pic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is in Chinese with English subtitles. It's true. Yet no filmgoer with a subtitle phobia should be dissuaded from seeing the movie, because it’s such a thrilling, intoxicating, heady ride that its subtitles are absolutely superfluous. Ang Lee has created something rather amazing – an accessible, American-audience-friendly foreign work – that will leave you gasping at its audacity and superior visuals while finding yourself completely enraptured by its two sets of heartbreaking romances; it’s a Chinese Titanic with a better script.