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Bad Teacher takes a delicious premise and leaves a sour aftertaste. Despite the promise of something nasty and cutting, the film turns out to be as edgy as a dull razor with limp "raunchy" comedy and an unwillingness to push envelopes. The concept ...

Can a great work of literature change a person's life? Whether or not you believe so, writer/director Dai Sijie, adapting his own novel (How many filmmakers can make that claim?), clearly does. The problem with the movie Balzac and the Little Chi...

It could be argued that The Banshees of Inisherin works better as an allegory than a straightforward narrative. There’s power in the message conveyed by writer/director Martin McDonagh’s screenplay; it’s less a drama and more a rumination ab...

Barb Wire has the cleavage of a Russ Meyer film without the jiggle. If someone was going to make a campy version of Casablanca, you'd think they'd at least have the decency to make it fun. Unfortunately, other than a couple of very obvious, ab...

In my original, unpublished review of Basic Instinct (dated March 21, 1992), I wrote the following: "There's a fine line between eroticism and exploitation, and Basic Instinct treads it, using nudity, sex, and violence to cover up the limitations o...

Perhaps it's a backhanded compliment to acknowledge that, as would-be "event" films about alien invasions go, Battle Los Angeles is superior to both Independence Day and Skyline. Nevertheless, the movie is likely to miss the mark for anyone in sear...

Let me start this review off on a positive note. Battleship is in 2-D, not 3-D, so there are no issues with motion blur, low light levels, and general eye discomfort. There are some nice establishing shots of Hawaii; I might want to go there if I w...

When it comes to resurrecting defunct TV shows as big-screen events, Hollywood has a less than stellar track record. With only a few exceptions, the results are forgettable and, consequently, forgotten. Despite having a legitimate A-list actor...

The first two Disneynature documentaries, 2007's Earth and 2009's Oceans, were visual feasts - amazing experiences made all the more remarkable when blown up for big screen viewing (they were distillations of TV miniseries). Since then, the label h...

A case could be made that everything is made better with Mr. Rogers added to the mix. Take A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. A standard-order redemption/salvation drama about healing a poisoned father/son relationship, this story is leavene...