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Obvious Stand By Me references aside, The Kings of Summer comes across as little more than a TV sitcom with enough swear words included to earn it an "R" rating. There's a little John Hughes vibe here, too: the adults are all idiots and the kids ar...

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the breezy directorial debut of Lethal Weapon screenwriter Shane Black. Black knows film noir inside and out, because he uses the basic template here. He jazzes things up by employing an aware and self-deprecating narrator ...

Kiss of the Spider Woman is a fascinating character study - an exploration into how a bond of kinship can develop between two very different men, each of whose present circumstances is erected on a foundation of secrets. The film, based on the nov...

Every time audiences are presented with a reasonably well-made serial killer movie, they line up for it. Why? Human beings are irresistibly fascinated by the lurid, the horrifying, and the depraved, and what could be more attention-grabbing than ...

The smart romantic comedy occurs so infrequently that it has obtained an almost mythical status, sort of like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. In the subgenre of gay and lesbian romantic comedies, intelligence is even rarer. Since the ratio of goo...

The Kitchen is a scattershot, uneven attempt to tell a gritty gangster story in which three women are the primary characters. Based on the DC comics series of the same name, the movie plays like the highlight reel of a deeper, more compelling ...

When a movie is made based on a book that millions of people have read, the first question asked often pertains to the faithfulness of the resultant cinematic product to its written inspiration. In the case of The Kite Runner, director Marc Forste...

The action/comedy genre has grown in popularity over the past couple of decades, but it remains difficult for filmmakers to find a workable balance between the seemingly disparate elements of the recipe. Too much action often results in marginaliz...

There are reasons why Hollywood rarely backs a murder mystery.  With its various narrative complexities, double dealings, and mandatory twists, the genre is generally unsuited for the constrictions demanded by a two-hour timeslot. As the PBS ...

If Knock at the Cabin was an episode of the old TV series “The Outer Limits,” it would be regarded as middling and forgettable. Such descriptors seem kind, however, when applied to a 100-minute production that requires an admission fee. A medi...