Search for Michael

When it comes to dark satires of the romantic comedy genre, few films are more vicious than Danny DeVito's 1989 offering, The War of the Roses. The film revels in its blackness in a way that few films during the last several decades have; even th...

Reaction to The Weather Man may depend upon an individual's ability to tolerate spending 100 minutes in the company of an unpleasant protagonist. There's no doubt this can be an uncomfortable experience, but it can also be rewarding for those who ...

An intriguing blend of globetrotting neo-noir and road trip plot elements, The Wedding Guest often seems on the cusp of greatness without ever getting there. The film classifies more as a disappointment than a success because, despite its litt...

Five minutes into The Wedding Planner, I suspected the film was in trouble. Ten minutes later, I knew it was in trouble. There's only one thing that can sink a movie so fast - bad writing. Even excruciating acting takes longer. Romantic comedie...

Considering the wealth of material provided by the recent tragedy in Bosnia, it's surprising that Michael Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo is the first major Western motion picture to take place in the war-torn country. It's possible to argue th...

"Men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." - Harry Burns (Billy Crystal), When Harry Met Sally That memorable line, penned by Nora Ephron and spoken by Billy Crystal, has become the template for more than one p...

Ever had the feeling that you're not getting the whole story? That's what it's like to watch What Planet Are You From?, which suffers from the kind of editing job that indicates a cluttered cutting room floor. The product that survived appears to...

Spoiler Alert: This movie contains spoilers for those who haven't seen the 1979 movie or the trailer for the 2006 version (which gives away what I'm going to reveal). Something went terribly wrong during the production of When a Stranger Calls...

When the Game Stands Tall is one of those cliché-riddled feel good movies that, by trying too hard to be inspirational, ends up as cloying and overly sentimental. At first glance, the narrative trajectory might seem to be on a different vector fr...