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Despite his reputation as one of America's foremost "serious" filmmakers, Oliver Stone's name under the "director" caption does not guarantee a good movie. I learned that lesson while enduring the seemingly-endless tedium of The Doors, and was rem...

In 1971, following the release of Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery announced that he would "never again" play the role of James Bond. As a result, the producers brought in Roger Moore, and the series continued. 12 years later, in 1983,...

It’s said that one of the reasons George Lucas deferred making the Star Wars prequels from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s is because the special effects technology he needed wasn’t available. I was reminded of this while watching Wolfgang...

For those familiar with director Shane Black’s oeuvre, The Nice Guys is closer to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang than Iron Man 3. Featuring the same blend of high octane action and Tarantino-esque humor as Black’s 2005 debut, The Nice Guys doubles as a come...

I can kind-of, sort-of see how this story might work as a novel. Bad dialogue doesn't sound as howlingly awful when not spoken aloud. Idiotic plot contrivances don't seem as painful and obvious. A love affair depends only on the spell woven by t...

No Reservations is an adequate adaptation of Sandra Nettelbeck's 2001 German feature, Mostly Martha. While not as emotionally resonant as its inspiration and tending a little more toward melodrama, No Reservations is nevertheless a uplifting tale ...

Watching No Sudden Move, the thought came to me that, if I didn’t know the director beforehand, I might guess Steven Soderbergh or the Coen Brothers. It’s the kind of production that only those filmmakers (or their proteges) would make, using...

In the tradition of Norma Rae and Silkwood, North Country is the story of one woman's struggle against an inflexible corporation. Despite some third-act flaws that weaken the conclusion, North Country does what it sets out to do: inspire and uplif...

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is essentially Homer's "The Odyssey" by way of the Coen Brothers with an assist from Preston Sturges (the title comes from the Sturges film, Sullivan's Travels). Or, to put it another way, it's a period piece road movie ...