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Two For The Road Review

By Christopher Null

Good

This bittersweet Audrey Hepburn flick can hardly be described as a classic, but it's a fun road trip nonetheless. The film tells the story of a couple (Hepburn and Albert Finney), together 12 years and facing a relationship crisis. They figure out what went wrong be reminiscing about a decade of trips together -- including the one on which they met and a hilarious one that includes an abrasive family of three. It's not high comedy, nor is it a brilliant drama, but both genres get their due. Watch for the car fire scene, especially.

The Parallax View Review

By Christopher Null

Very Good

Stylish yet devilishly confusing, this film has Warren Beatty as an investigative reporter trying to hunt down a conspiracy that begins with the death of a congressman and continues with the deaths of his reporter friends that are snooping into the affair. Beatty uncovers a company behind it all called the Parallax Corporation (think Scientology meets The Manchurian Candidate), which may be a kind of temp agency for assassins. Naturally, he applies for membership, getting in far deeper than he ever realized. Dreamily designed and archly retro, I had to watch bits and pieces three or four times just to put it all together.

Continue reading: The Parallax View Review

The Graduate Review

By Christopher Null

Essential

A rare, introspective masterpiece about a recent college grad (Dustin Hoffman) and his jaded outlook on life... which leads him into an ill-advised fling with the older, married Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). A true classic and the spawn of the immortal one-word line of advice: "Plastics."

Hoffman is unforgettable, as is Bancroft (supposedly old enough to be Hoffman's mother but actually only 6 years his senior in real life). Of course, Buck Henry and Calder Willingham's adaptation of Charles Webb's novel is what makes this picture so perfectly solid ("Mrs. Robinson... you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"), and who can forget the masterful direction of Mike Nichols, here in his prime, setting up that immortal shot of Hoffman as seen beneath the bent knee of Bancroft? And Simon & Garfunkel's soundtrack is also perfectly apt, unforgettable to this day.

Continue reading: The Graduate Review