Front of the Queue
Annette Insdorf
The cinematic expertise of Professor Annette Insdorf has bedazzled Columbia’s Film Department for many years, and this week, the Director of Undergraduate Film Studies shares her most recent thoughts.
In Deepa Mehta’s superb Water, set in 1938 India, an eight-year-old girl whose husband dies is sent to a home where Hindu widows live in penitence.
Perfume is a sumptuous adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s novel, often reminiscent of The Tin Drum. Director Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run) evocatively recreates an ancient and odoriferous Paris.
Dreamgirls, smartly directed by Bill Condon, is a joyful musical.
Given that Breaking and Entering is gifted director Anthony Minghella’s third collaboration with Jude Law and his second with Juliette Binoche, this contemporary London drama is promising.
Lasse Hallstrom’s The Hoax sounds fascinating, with Richard Gere playing Clifford Irving—who tried to pull off a literary hoax with Howard Hughes’ “autobiography.”