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When we last saw Richard Dreyfuss gazing skyward, he was about to have a close encounter of the third kind. Now, some four-plus decades later, the still-working actor is again looking up, although this time the reasons are less extraterrestria...

The Astronaut's Wife is the latest demonstration of how a good "high concept" does not necessarily translate into a decent motion picture. With its Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-inspired storyline, this movie could have been an effectively creepy ...

The title character's "mojo" isn't the only thing missing from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Also absent are the freshness and spontaneity that characterized the original. Those characteristics have been replaced by lame and obvious atte...

Through the years, there have been many big-screen attempts to satirize James Bond, from the terrible misfire Casino Royale to the recent, even-worse Spy Hard. In between, even the "official" Bond series got in on the act -- during the Roger Moore...

Yasujiro Ozu is widely regarded as one of Japan’s two greatest filmmakers. Unlike his contemporary, Akira Kurosawa, Ozu didn’t receive worldwide recognition until after his death in 1963. Although Kurosawa was well-known in the West during...

Screened in standard (non-IMAX) digital 3D. Avatar has been described as a "game-changer," and perhaps it is. I'll leave that for future historians to determine. What I can say with some assuredness is this is the most technically amazing motio...

The majority of this review is taken from what I wrote in 2009. I have tweaked and edited it to update it for 2022. Following the main review are a few new comments written following my re-watching of the film on September 23, 2022.Avatar has been d...

Minimal spoilers. There are some references to things that happen and the usual discussion about plot elements available via trailers and pre-release clips, but I have tried to remain as “spoiler-lite” as possible. As always, however, if y...

It may be fair to consider Away We Go as Sam Mendes' penance for Revolutionary Road. The director's late-2008 Winslet/DiCaprio reunion was an immersion in bile - an acidic trip underneath the placid exterior of mid-20th century suburbia to a rot t...

At first glance, a movie about the adventures of a piglet who thinks he's a sheepdog doesn't appear to be the perfect entertainment recipe for those beyond puberty. However, through a mixture of imaginative storytelling, impressive animatronics, a...