When you suffer a devastating loss, there is the pain of missing what you once had. But there is pain that goes beyond the space circumscribed by the person who is gone. Grief is its own planet a...
After an enormous train crash/explosion, a line of dialog reassures us that the engineer (played in a quick cameo by Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook) was not hurt. This is, reassuringly, a Disne...
"Radio" may be as predictable as a Hallmark card, but it is as heartwarming, too. This is a nice, old-fashioned family movie about the importance of kindness. The characters learn that some thing...
Squeaky-clean Hilary Duff's latest movie plays like a cross between a Disney-fied music video and a script developed by girls playing with Barbies. So, it will please its target audience of tween ...
They say that it isn't adults who create children; it's children who create adults. And they're right.
This theme resonates deeply with us and has inspired many, many movies, going back be...
Rat Race" is a loving salute to the spirit of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World," a splendid salute to slapstick that featured just about everyone who happened to be in Hollywood in 1965. "Rat Race" h...
An extraordinary actor plays an extraordinary person in "Ray," the life of a brilliant musician and performer who triumphed over poverty, blindness, and racism through talent, passion, and courage....
For all those out there who can't wait for the next Adam Sandler movie, and especially for those who find those Adam Sandler movies a little too intellectually challenging, we now have "Ready to Ru...
Ancient scrolls foretell the birth of an evil child begat of an unholy union between an episode of "The X-Files" and Nicolas Cage’s The Wicker Man, from the branch of the family that produced Chi...
It's called "Rebound," but it's more like "Retread." This is right off the conveyer belt of underdog-team-of-kids-matched-with hot-headed-and-self-centered-coaches-used-to-sliding-by movie...
When you lie all the time, how do you remember what is true? How do you remember to care?
That is a theme of most spy movies, and it is right at the center of this twisty story about a gra...
Give me Dame Helen Mirren with a semi-automatic weapon and Morgan Freeman smiling, "We're getting the band back together," and I will happily settle back and enjoy the popcorn.
"RED" stands for "R...
There was much to improve in the original version of "Red Dawn," a simple-minded fantasy film about a communist invasion of small town America: the plot, which asked us to believe that Cu...
Hannibal Lecter is back in "Red Dragon," but he cannot ever scare us again as much as he did in "Silence of the Lambs." We know him too well. But that very knowledge becomes one of the pleasures ...
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Oh, Grandmother, what a big, bad movie you have.
So, apparently what happened here is that for whatever reason director Catherine Hardwicke did not get to make the second and third "Twili...
The official military documents of the 1940's said that African-Americans were "mentally inferior" "subservient and cowards" and not fit to fly planes. The Tuskegee Airmen of WWII proved that Afr...
The most important moment in Bill Maher's new documentary about the dangers and hypocrisy of religion is at the conclusion of his visit to a tiny trucker's chapel. As he does throughout the movie ...
Robert Pattinson has gone from brooding, adoring Bella, saving Bella, and trying not to kill anyone in the
Twili...
This movie about the real-life integration of a Virginia high school football teem teeters on the brink of cliche and stereotype but manages to come down on the side of archetype, thanks to a sure ...
This is America. We do not torture people. But sometimes we send prisoners suspected of ties to terrorism to places where they do torture people. That is what happens to Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar M...
Silly cops have been a staple of comedy since Shakespeare created the character of Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. They've been a staple of movie comedy from the Keystone Kops of the silent er...
Genre: Romance
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When thinking about a Tony- and Pulitzer-prize winning musical based on an opera, an almost-entirely-sung story about homeless artists, some of them drug addicts, some infected with the AIDS virus,...
What is it about football movies? I don't even like football, but I am a sucker for a good football movie. I'm even a sucker for a pretty good one like this lightweight but likeable story about p...
We’ve all done it. We know we shouldn’t. We know it is dangerous. Dwight (Mark Ruffalo) is racing to get his 10-year-old son home after a ball game went into extra innings. He is ...
The definitive comment about "Resident Evil" was made by my friend Luke, who walked out of the theater with me and said, "The computer game is more realistic than the movie." At least, I think tha...
That nasty old Umbrella Corporation, "the largest and most powerful corporation in the world," is up to its bad old tricks again. This time the evil virus that it unleashed in its huge underground...
Those meanies at the Umbrella Corporation are at it again in the third chapter of this series based on the popular computer game. That pesky virus they allowed to escape has wiped out nearly all li...
Critic-turned-writer/director Rod Lurie produces old-fashioned potboilers, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. His unabashed melodramas can be refreshing in an era when very little of what we ...
No surprises here, but it is a pleasant date-movie, a romance that tries hard to transcend its gimmick and just about succeeds. Let’s get the gimmick out of the way first – guy has girl (archi...
This pleasant but forgettable sequel to Disney’s "Peter Pan" is not just not up to the original animated feature. It is not even up to the standard set by the vintage Pluto cartoon ("Pluto’s F...
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MPAA Rating: R
Audience: Adult
It may be, as Thoreau said, that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation," but in the movies, desperation is much more likely to be loud. "Revolutionary Road" is another movie about unhappiness,...
Like the life of its subject matter, there is a lot that is wrong with this movie, but there is also something right enough for a bittersweet happy ending.
Drew Barrymore stars in the true st...
Has there ever been a cinematic pairing as eagerly anticipated as this one? Perhaps, but I can't think of one that has been anticipated as long. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro were both in 1974's "T...
A true connoisseur of the scary movie (note, not slasher flicks but psychological thrillers) will recognize certain spooky elements in many of the "classics" of the genre: the cruel parent (or ste...
First off, this is the kind of sequel where you really should see the Ring before seeing the Ring Two. In addition to the many visual and character references, you also will understand that the se...
First off, this is the kind of sequel where you really should see the Ring before seeing the Ring Two. In addition to the many visual and character references, you also will understand that the se...
The single most interesting aspect of this movie about a man who pretends to be disabled so that he can compete in the
» Read Review
Posted on Tuesday December 20, 2005
» Read Review
Posted on Tuesday November 20, 2012
By the time they got to the line, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty ape!" I couldn't help thinking, "Take your stinking paws off the franchise, Hollywood!" Do we really need anot...
Actors! They just can't help themselves when a juicy part comes along. And that is why Oscar-winner Sir Anthony Hopkins finds himself in "The Rite," an "inspired by a true story" thriller about a...
Writer Norman Maclean’s autobiographical story of growing up in Montana with his brother Paul begins, "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing."
Their Presb...
In West Side Story, Anita says that the boys dance like they're trying to get rid of something. There is no trick photography in this film. It begins by advising the audience that the movie h...
The most terrifying moment we ever experience is the realization that we are responsible for the life of the perfect being who has turned us from people into parents. We want more than anything to...
Dreamworks SKG steps up to the Disney gold standard with this sensationally entertaining animated adventure. Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branaugh provide the voices for Miguel and Tulio, two loveable ...
Road to Perdition is a powerful, beautifully made film about fathers and sons and sin and redemption, that overrides minor flaws through beautiful directing and first class performances.
Tom H...
In fairness to the intended audience for this movie, the following review was written by my 16-year-old, who wanted to give it more stars: Road Trip, a raunchy comedy in the style of Detroit Rock C...
Robert Blecker is one of the most outspoken -- and unexpected -- proponents of the death penalty. He does not try to base ...
If, as the Gothic calligraphy tells us as the beginning of this film, tyrants inspire heroes, then the clear implication is that heroes inspire movies. And Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to g...
Just like its endearing hero, Rodney Copperbottom (voice of Ewan McGregor), this movie is assembled from hand-me-down parts but it has so much heart that it is transformed into something irresistib...
» Read Review
Posted on Thursday June 14, 2012
As adorable as Jack Black's fictional portrayal was, there is something inherently disturbing about the idea of a real life School of Rock for 9-17-year-olds. Of course there is the problem of the...
There is logic, there is movie logic, and then there is the kind of "throw some big musical numbers and some good-looking stars on the screen and no one will notice that it makes no sense whatsoeve...
Hal (Reece Thompson) has something say but he has a lot of trouble saying it. On the bus, he can practice asking for pizza, but when it comes to the moment and he is standing in the cafeteria line...
Plot: Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a sweet-natured but not very bright boxer and small-time enforcer for a loan-shark. He has a crush on Adrian (Talia Shire), the painfully shy sister of hi...
"You throw a big shadow," someone tells Sylvester Stallone in his sixth appearance as heavyweight Rocky Balboa, the character he created for the Oscar-winning Rocky). And those five previous films...
It takes some brains to make a good dumb comedy. Paul Rudd, who has been the best thing in too many films that ranged from dumb, to awful, to wildly uneven, has co-created a film that manages to i...
In Undercover Brother, director Malcolm Lee's shrewd but affectionate appreciation of the 1970's was played for satire. In "Roll Bounce," he brings that same evocative skill to a coming of age sto...
Hong Kong action star Jet Li ("Lethal Weapon 4") and R&B artist Aliyah are a hip-hop Romeo and Juliet in this tired tale of rival gangters. Fans of martial arts will do well to wait for it to ...
Plot: Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) arrives in Italy with her strait-laced aunt Charlotte (Maggie Smith). Disappointed at not getting the room with a view they had been promised when maki...
Imagine standing in Los Angeles, trying to shoot a basketball all the way to New York, where it must hit the basket without touching the hoop. That's the magnitude of the challenge faced by NASA s...
Just about everything is a little off-kilter in this quirky story about a wildly dysfunctional family.
A prologue tells us that Royal (Gene Hackman) and Etheline (Anjelica Houston) had three...
In this true story of determination and courage, a young man from a blue collar family wants to play football for Notre Dame, despite the fact he has neither the athletic nor the academic skills. D...
The two worlds of the popular Klasky/Csupo Nickelodeon series come together when the Rugrats get shipwrecked on a deserted island and meet up with the Wild Thornberrys.
That means that we'...
Fans of the television series will be happily at home with this movie, which takes its toddler heroes through two terrifying adventures -- getting lost in the woods and having to share parents with...
In 1985, Brett Easton Ellis’ first book "Less than Zero", introduced a new voice to the "party at the end of civilization" genre – those texts dealing with a corrupted society’s last orgy bef...
22-year-old Hunter S. Thompson wrote a novel about men in their 30's working for a Puerto Rican newspaper, equally soaked in the title libation and the brinier flavors of cynicism and failure, but ...
In the savage satire The Player, actor/screenwriter Buck Henry makes a hilarious pitch for a sequel to The Graduate, something of a savage satire itself, though cloaked in the garb of a romantic fa...
David Schwimmer, who ...
Teenagers with a taste for the offbeat will enjoy this German import about a woman who gets a frantic phone call from her boyfriend and has only 20 minutes to find 100,000 marks (about $60,000), or...
In the all-time best romantic comedy ever, "The Philadelphia Story," Jimmy Stewart says, "The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges." Not really ...
John Grisham's courtroom thriller is given the big-time Hollywood treatment and the result is as reliably entertaining -- but also as forgettable -- as an airplane novel. This is the kind of story...
The fierce determination. The big break. The tyrannical and sometimes unreasonable and sometimes even crooked manager. The endless rehearsals. The performances in dingy clubs. The breakthrough...
"The Rundown" is a likeable action movie with an almost-loveable star, World Wrestling Entertainment's The Rock as Beck, an enforcer for a nasty bad guy named Walker.
We first meet Beck in ...
The appeal for actors of movies about hideously dysfunctional people is obvious. They're fun to play, and always good for awards consideration. Which script would you go for, the umpty-umpth "meet...
Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan is always a delight to watch. His charm, wit,and impeccable timing make his kung fu moves closer to Charlie Chaplin or Jacques Tati than to Stephen Segal. He has had...
Less a sequel than a remake of the first "Rush Hour," this version sets itself up to be the next "Lethal Weapon" franchise by meticulously repeating all of the elements of the first one. Those ele...
This story about the misery that comes from the grandiosity and humiliation during adolescence is probably of more interest to adults than to the teens who are already only too aware of those exper...
Road movies are pretty easy. Whether the people on the journey have just met and are getting to know each other or who don't like each other and have to overcome animosity, all we ask is two thing...
Do You Believe in Miracles? Take some time this week to help someone else. Surprise someone with ...
10 Exercises to Stay Spiritually Fit Get spiritually fit with our 10 tips!
20 Scriptures That Bring Hope to Any Situation Need a lift? Here are 20 scriptures to make you feel better in any ...
5 Ways to Revive Your Dream! Rekindle your joy! Re-ignite your passion. Achieve your wildest ...
7 Ways to Plant Seeds of Greatness in Your Life Visit ways to plant seeds of greatness into your life. ...
20 Powerful Declarations to Fight Discouragement Speak life into your day with these 20 declarations!
5 Ways to Stay Healthy This Summer Here are five ways to remain healthy and happy during the summer!
5 Tips for Better Sleep Top sleep expert Dr. David Volpi, Founder of Eos Sleep Center has put ...
7 Top Health Issues Facing Today’s Women Here are seven top health-related issues facing today’s women and ...
Celebrities Who Won't Back Down Here are five courageous women who won’t back down when their health ...
Words of Wisdom from Dr Joyce Brothers Dr. Joyce Brothers passed away May 13, 2013 at her Fort Lee, New ...
A Conversation with Minnesota Wild Center Matt Cullen With the NHL Playoffs in full swing, Minnesota Wild center Matt ...
Yes, Gratitude Works! Having an attitude of thankfulness brings incredible, unexpected ...
10 Ways to To Handle Life Changes With Courage Here are 10 tips to help you handle the twists and turns on the road ...
The Fruits of Desire Fruits are the ultimate fast food: sweet, healthy and conveniently ...
Nurturing a Healthy Marriage For many couples, years of marriage can sadly lead them to a negative ...
10 Ways to Get Over a Hurtful Past Has someone hurt you? Use these tips to move forward.
Ten Things Every Dad Should Tell His Son Being a father has never been more difficult. It's is a tough world ...
Same "stick it to the man"...
