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Does the fact that Tag is loosely based on a real story make it more enjoyable? Not really, although it illustrates the absurdity of some human endeavors. It’s a red herring designed to distract from an underlying truth about this movie: it ...

In March 1977, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences committed another in their seemingly-endless series of injustices, awarding the Best Picture Oscar to John Avildsen's Rocky, thereby snubbing one of the great modern American classics...

A Thin Line Between Love and Hate is muddled to the point of tedium. The screenplay is credited to four writers, and its unevenness argues that none of them were on the same wavelength. Subplots start but never finish, characters come and go...

“Raped While Dying”, “And Still No Arrests”, “How Come, Chief Willoughby?” The text of those three billboards establishes a narrative but, although that’s the starting point for Martin McDonagh’s stellar Three Billboards Outside...

By the time Thunderball, the fourth in the "official" James Bond film canon, was released, the "Bond Formula" had already been perfected. It goes something like this: take the suave 007 (always impeccably dressed and ready with a witty one-l...

The key to effectively dramatizing a tragedy like the one at the center of Till is to avoid the slightest whiff of exploitation. The events surrounding the death of 14-year old Emmett Till on August 28, 1955 are well documented. Prior to that fate...

Tom and Viv is culture. From the opening credits to the closing caption, this is never in doubt. Not designed for mass consumption, the examination of T.S. Eliot's tragic first marriage has all the marks of a "typical" British art film (or an...

When one considers the films that won the Best Picture Oscar in the decade from 1956 through 1965, it’s evident that the Academy favored two kinds of productions: spectacles and musicals. During that span, there were two outliers: 1960’s T...

The scrutiny surrounding Tomorrow Never Dies, the eighteenth "official" James Bond film (not counting Casino Royale or Never Say Never Again), isn't as intense as it was around Goldeneye, but the attendant hype is, if anything, even more severe. ...