David Paymer

The Chosen Films

About a Man

In Good Company is wonderfully funny, a bit sad and unmistakably real

Damn it, Mamet

The master of macho dialogue loses his touch

Crap Out

Loosely based on The Gambler, Alex and Emma, sadly, takes no risks at all

Workplace Woes

Bartleby is all surface and no substance

The Look of Hate

Arthur Miller fixes his Focus on prejudice in 1940s Brooklyn

Hook, Line, Stinker

Don't bite, even if Bait does

A small gust

Denzel Washington is sorely buffeted by The Hurricane

Nuts to you

With psychobabble and Hollywood hoodoo, Mumford can't cure what ails ya

Chill, brother

Or: Cuba Gooding Jr., you may now return your Academy Award

Through the past starkly

Brian Helgeland gamely reimagines a pulp legend in Payback

Out of Africa

Spielberg delivers a wildly erratic--and tumultuously moving--historical epic with the overreaching passion of a man possessed

Politics as usual

Though The American President flounders, a radiant Annette Bening makes it worth watching