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When one considers the phenomenon of "Spring Break," images of bikini-clad young women, bronzed guys, and inhibition-shedding parties fill the mind's eye. In general, Hollywood has used Spring Break as a jumping-off point for comedies - some romant...

The cinematic landscape has become so cluttered with the biopics of musical legends (and a few that fall into the “legends in their own mind” category) that the tendency is to shun these chronicles of hard times and inner struggles in favor of...

Summer is the season of bloat and the trait is evident in Spy's excessive running length. At about 90 minutes, this would have been a fresh, breezy action-comedy. However, with an additional half-hour of padding, viewers are forced to endure stre...

The biggest crime committed by The Spy Who Dumped Me isn’t its dearth of humor or reliance on an unimaginative espionage plot but the way it wastes the talents of its leads, Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon. Their easy rapport, a staple of any wo...

The foundation of any good family drama is interesting characters, and The Squid and the Whale is replete with them. Movies about divorce and dysfunctional families are so commonplace that it's difficult to avoid slipping into clichés yet, as a re...

Call it the Grumpy Old Man syndrome. In recent years, there has been a spate of movies about hoary curmudgeons bonding with kids. From Bad Santa to Bad Grandpa, it's all about oldsters learning life lessons from youngsters and vice versa. St. Vin...

There was a time when it was considered "daring" or "risky" to make a comedy-tinged war movie. In the early 1950s, with the scabs from World War II still in evidence and the United States enmeshed in Korea, war didn't seem to be a lighthearte...

Stand By Me reinforces something that has been understood in Hollywood for decades: nostalgia sells. With this film, it's "planned nostalgia," meaning that the production was designed from the beginning to encourage older audience members to look ...

Hollywood loves coming back to this story; it shows the entire lifecycle of show business and celebrity in one easily-digestible morsel. Over the years, A Star Is Born has attracted the likes of Frederic March, Gloria Gaynor, Judy Garland, Jam...

Spoiler Warning! This review contains spoiler elements, especially for those unfamiliar with the general premise. In a culture where seemingly everything is remade or re-booted, even Star Trek, the venerable science fiction TV show and movie se...