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How, one might ask, does one begin to defend Xanadu? To start with, by looking at it without any pretensions and seeing it for what it is. Conventional wisdom decrees that Xanadu is a horrible film. In a sense, conventional wisdom may be correct...

Certain historical periods provide rich and varied soil for the cultivation of motion picture storylines. The twilight of the Roman Empire is one. The American Civil War is another. World War II marks a third. And a fourth is the Chinese "Cultu...

When the original xXx was released 15 years ago, it was designed as one of several potential franchise properties for a new hot-shot action star named Vin Diesel. In its August 2002 run, the film did respectably at the box office but fell short of th...

For his directorial debut, Idris Elba has elected to work in a genre he’s comfortable with – the crime thriller. The actor-turned-director is not, however, content merely to regurgitate bits and pieces of productions in which he has appear...

Although the idea behind Yesterday was to craft a love-letter to The Beatles, the end result tastes a lot like a typical Richard Curtis rom-com with a generous helping of John-Paul-George-Ringo gravy. Less reliant on pop music than either Bohe...

Of all the great foreign film directors to obtain U.S. releases for their movies, Akira Kurosawa can arguably boast the highest number of viewers. One of the reasons for this is that Kurosawa was heavily influenced by Hollywood - as can be seen in...

The term "Capra-corn" was coined for movies such as this one: feel-good endeavors that emphasize the better portions of human nature over the base, venal ones. With Capra, no matter how dark things got in the middle (and it's tough to get darker ...

You Don’t Nomi is a 2019 documentary that takes a fond look back at the deservedly derided Paul Vehoeven/Joe Eszterhas box office bomb, Showgirls. Although director Jeffrey McHale approaches the retrospective from a decidedly subjective poin...

Forever remembered as the "Japanese Bond", You Only Live Twice takes 007 to the Far East for his fifth screen adventure, Sean Connery's final consecutive appearance as the top British agent (the actor returned to the role twice more: 1971's D...

Tom Hanks can act. You need look no further than this year's Saving Private Ryan for proof of that. Meg Ryan can also act. For supporting evidence, check out Prelude to a Kiss and Courage Under Fire. However, in Nora Ephron's latest romantic co...