Search for Alan

Big Trouble in Little China was released at a time when John Carpenter’s white-hot career had begun a downward trajectory. His third feature starring Kurt Russell, Big Trouble matched the action-adventure elements of Escape from New York wit...

The Boxtrolls represents the best animated movie to reach theater screens since The Lego Movie exploded on the scene in February. A British-flavored, 3-D stop motion affair, The Boxtrolls channels more than a little Monty Python in telling its Tarz...

It is said that films are not made about fully functional families because their stories are inherently uninteresting. The Boys Are Back shows that dysfunction doesn't necessarily equate to compelling. There's nothing terribly wrong with this lei...

If you have a powerful desire to see Jennifer Aniston's bare butt, The Break-Up is not to be missed. But if the former Mrs. Pitt's posterior isn't high on your list of sights to see, the film is better left to unspool in theaters unviewed. The Br...

For younger fans of Marvel movies, it may be hard to remember anything that came before the advent of the MCU. For decades, however, studios had been trying to strike gold with Marvel properties in ways to rival the success experienced by Warner B...

Was it only six years ago that every Marvel movie was greeted with unbridled anticipation and around-the-clock showings that delivered box office records? Although Disney executives have been quick to blame the pandemic for the decline of the MCU,...

It's fair to say that superhero saturation has set in. Not many years ago, every cinematic version of a comic book protagonist's adventures was awaited with baited breath. Now, because of an unceasing and sometimes careless flood of such titles, ma...

I'm sure there will be wags who will glibly compare Cast Away to the likes of "Gilligan's Island" and "Survivor", but, in tone, approach, and overall accomplishment, this atypical Robinson Crusoe tale bears a strong resemblance to one of director R...

Review based on a 2-D (standard) screening. If I ever wanted to know what A Christmas Carol might look like as a high-end video game, I need search no farther than this motion picture, which takes the Dickens classic and converts it into somethi...

Contact is likely to change a lot of perceptions -- not only about the role of humankind in the universe, but about what special effects can do for a movie when they're used in the service of a story, rather than the other way around. Contact...