Search for 2006

I have nothing against historical fiction: books or movies using real characters in situations that didn't happen. However, one would hope in such cases that the authors would have a story worth telling. That's not the case with Copying Beethoven...

There's not much of a mystery about what Crank delivers. As promised, it's 85 minutes of action, with little in the way of encumbrances like dialogue and exposition, and only skeletal fragments of a narrative to keep things moving. For the most p...

Curse of the Golden Flower is director Zhang Yimou's ambitious attempt to blend martial arts action with Shakespearean melodrama. It's not a perfect marriage but it offers two hours of solidly over-the-top entertainment featuring incredible visual...

Perhaps a better title for The Da Vinci Code might be Much Ado about Nothing. When you boil away the hype and hysteria, all that remains is a pedestrian murder mystery that isn't sufficiently challenging or scandalous to raise anyone's hackles. I...

It has been one of the hottest tickets everywhere in North America where it has been shown. Now, placed in a limited number of U.S. theaters despite the near-solidarity of a chain multiplex ban, the movie is opening less than two weeks before Elec...

Christmas movies like this are enough to turn one into a Grinch or at least make one wish that the filmmakers would get a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future. Why it is so hard to make a decent Christmas comedy? Not every movie has to be on ...

Deep Water is a documentary, but it's also one part adventure film, one part Greek tragedy, and one part meditation on the role of the "hero" in modern society. The movie starts out with a seemingly simple premise: chronicle the first nonstop roun...

Wedding the phrase "Jerry Bruckheimer production" with the words "intelligent screenplay" might seem to be an unimaginable mismatch, but it has happened. Déjà Vu, the new thriller from Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott, impresses with both the...

Forget The Grudge 2, Saw III, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. If you want real horror - the kind that will turn your stomach and curdle your insides - you need look no further than the documentary realm and Deliver Us from Evil. After...

The Departed is a perfect example of why remakes shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan have taken the B-grade Hong Kong crime flick Infernal Affairs and re-imagined it as an American epic tra...