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Kung Fu Panda 3 falls on the kids-only end of the family movie spectrum. Unlike the best animated films, Kung Fu Panda 3 is content to appeal primarily to younger viewers, offering little of substance for the parents who accompany them to theaters. I...

La La Land, Damien Chazelle’s much-anticipated follow-up to his stunning 2014 feature debut, Whiplash, illustrates the magic that can result when a director is fully committed to a vision. Chazelle doesn’t just want to tell a story (altho...

Fear of the dark - few phobias are more common across the spectrum of modern society. Horror, in all its shapes, sizes, and forms, often works by exploiting this. It’s an underpinning of vampire stories and almost all horror films save their go...

The best animated films are the ones that work on multiple levels, allowing children and adults to engage, often in different ways, with the characters and story. Throughout its history, Walt Disney Pictures has excelled in making those kinds of f...

A noir horror movie of the most un-classic kind, Brad Anderson's The Machinist takes you into the unstable mind of an insomniac with a dark secret whose life has become a bleak emotional wasteland devoted only to going through the motions of workin...

It’s unusual for a series lasting four movies to follow the consistent downward trend evidenced by The Matrix cycle. The first movie, 1999’s The Matrix, started things off with a bang. Sadly, the first sequel, 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded, was...

Spoilers... I guess. Those who care, however, will have already read the book and therefore can't be spoiled. When it comes to movies based on YA novels, there are two flavors: those designed exclusively for fans of the books (Twilight, for ex...

Whenever a movie is released that seeks to tantalize the taste buds through the sheer force of its visual imagery, most critics feel duty-bound to advise potential viewers not to see the film on an empty stomach. That warning applies here, althoug...

My concept of a "family film" is a movie that can be enjoyed by viewers of all ages: undiscriminating young children, teenagers with short attention spans, and adults with somewhat more refined standards. Unfortunately, too often Hollywood eq...

It's increasingly unusual that a thriller can claim to maintain its intensity for the entirety of its running length. No Escape is masterful at keeping the stakes high without confounding our so-called "suspension of disbelief." Unlike ...