Alan Parker

(C+) Across the Universe is disarming, discombobulating and disappointing. Director Julie Taymor has torn page after page from the Beatles' songbook and used it to assemble an allusive pop history of the 1960s. At the film's core is a love story that...

Good story, well told. Interesting concept. I wonder if people will go for it. Director Denzel Washington's "The Great Debaters" is pure Hollywood, not without its share of storytelling cliches and golden-toned inspirational teaching moments, but you...

Administrator: Welcome to the chat! seantgla: What has been the most challenging work of your career? T.C. Boyle: Hauling bundles of clothes out of the stockroom for Nathan Fish's Men's and Boys' Wear in Peekskill, New York, when I was sixteen. As it...

3 stars (out of four) Every actor comes equipped with a thermostat, and the best actors can jack up the heat with the flick of a finger, or a flicker of menace around the eyes. In the absorbing political thriller "The Last King of Scotland" it takes...

3 stars (out of four) One day, while teenage Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer) laments to his nanny/housekeeper Jack (Alicia Silverstone) about the travails of his ennui-burdened life in the home of his banker/uncle Ian (Ewan McGregor), something happens that...

Do you believe in magic? Do you think small can be beautiful? Are you looking for a little film you can make your own, an enchanting, unpretentious blend of music and romance you can watch forever? If you do, "Once" is about to come into your life and...

Wilson Pickett, the Alabama-born soul singer who brought a raw groove and growling energy to 1960s R & B music, with hits such as "In the Midnight Hour" and "Mustang Sally," died Thursday. He was 64. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member died at a...

From The Times: Feb. 16, 1989 MGM/UA's "Rain Man" grabbed a narrow lead in the 61st Oscar race Wednesday with eight nominations, including Dustin Hoffman's sixth best-actor nod for his portrayal of a numbers-crunching autistic savant on a cross-country...

3-1/2 stars (out of 4) Just as J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" represents a step in maturity beyond the series' first two books, so does director Alfonso Cuaron's film version improve upon its predecessors. This third "Harry...

Orson Welles once wrote of Hollywood, "a genuine individual is an outright nuisance in a factory." No one knew better than Welles did just how scorned genuine individualism can be in Hollywood — even in the most putatively independent of realms. But...

At the moment, Hartford's movie-lovers can savor some of the best pictures of 2002, released at the end of the year in major markets and now spreading to the provinces. Still, it is a long way to the start of the next big movie season, which begins May...

Alan Parker, the director of the death-penalty drama "The Life of David Gale," likes his acting big, his edits hard and his stories slick. A filmmaker with a penchant for highbrow material and an instinct for lowbrow thrills, Parker is a consummate...