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The average animated sequel is content to apprehend the successful elements from its predecessor and regurgitate them. The result, no matter how enjoyable, often drips with an overly familiar precipitation. Dreamworks' biggest animated franchise, S...

Kung Fu Panda 3 falls on the kids-only end of the family movie spectrum. Unlike the best animated films, Kung Fu Panda 3 is content to appeal primarily to younger viewers, offering little of substance for the parents who accompany them to theaters. I...

This review contains spoilers, if that term can be used for a movie that has been around for 85 years!While I’ll admit that Jean Vigo’s 1934 feature, L’Atalante, is charming, I won’t be among those who label it as one of the great cinemati...

Crooked cops. The mystery and allure of Hollywood in the '50s. Death, double-crossing, and secret alliances. Paparazzi waiting to get that one breakthrough picture. These are just some of the elements that make Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confiden...

La La Land, Damien Chazelle’s much-anticipated follow-up to his stunning 2014 feature debut, Whiplash, illustrates the magic that can result when a director is fully committed to a vision. Chazelle doesn’t just want to tell a story (altho...

"Labor" isn't just a word in the title of Jason Reitman's new film, it's a description of what it feels like to sit through the movie. Messy, poorly focused, and overflowing with artifice, Labor Day is an unpleasant surprise to come from the pen of...

Fantasy in the 1980s had a “cutesy” problem. Setting aside the deliciously bloody Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian, the field was littered with productions steeped in the belief that fantasy=children’s fare. Whether it was Disney’s b...

Lady Bird, the solo directorial debut of actress Greta Gerwig, is the intimate coming-of-age story of a young woman from Sacramento, California, who believes the world is happening out there while she is trapped in a dead-end existence. Highl...

Maturity can be an evanescent quality. Sometimes, even when you've acquired it, you don't recognize it. As a grown woman or man, having left childhood long behind, it's still possible to think of oneself as a young person playing the part of an adu...

Lamb, the feature debut of Valdimar Johannsson, is the latest export from Iceland to indicate that movies from that corner of the world may not be the most palatable to mainstream American audiences. Johannson has had plenty of experience with...