CROUCHING TIGER is nevertheless a gloriously big epic, starring the Hong Kong action stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh in a visionary adventure where the characters seem set free from the force of gravity.

There's something depressing about a young couple helplessly in love. Their state is so perfect, it must be doomed. They project such qualities on their lover that only disappointment can follow.

It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius.

I will one day be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.

We think of first love as sweet and valuable, a blessed if hazardous condition.

I like smart movies about smart people, and enjoy it when most of the facts are on the table and we can contemplate them together.

Jane Austen wrote six of the most beloved novels in the English language, we are informed at the end of Becoming Jane, and so she did. The key word is beloved. Her admirers do not analyze her books so much as they just plain love them to pieces.