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At a time when most movies spoon-feed background and narrative developments to viewers via exposition dumps and flashbacks, Todd Field (making his third overall feature and his first in 16 years) opts for a more  ambiguous approach. By trusting t...

One thing viewers should never reasonably expect from an animated movie is faithfulness to the source material. Adult themes and unhappy endings rarely make it into a Disney movie. That's why Ariel survives in The Little Mermaid, the bulk of Alad...

In March 1977, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences committed another in their seemingly-endless series of injustices, awarding the Best Picture Oscar to John Avildsen's Rocky, thereby snubbing one of the great modern American classics...

Ted is essentially a one-joke movie. Okay, it's a very funny joke, but it's still only one joke. As a short, this could have been brilliant - hilarious, irreverent, and blisteringly satirical. I laughed a lot during the first half hour, not as much...

The original Ted was an engagingly ribald comedy that worked in large part because the gimmick was fresh. After all, Teddy Bears, even on those rare occasions when they talk, don't normally curse, smoke weed, and engage in sexual pantomime. At th...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 2014 iteration of a franchise that has been a kids' staple for more than 25 years, is a close cousin to Transformers. Both gained mainstream popularity as a result of toys and TV shows, both have die-hard followin...

It's often said that there's nothing new in Hollywood. That may well be true, but that doesn't stop writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein from trying in his debut feature. Teeth is not only odd but it's genre-defying. The film doesn't limit its ...

One common complaint about modern-day horror is a tendency to spoon-feed plot elements to viewers, revealing not only too much about the resident evil but doing it in a manner that leaves little to interpretation. Whatever its flaws, and there...

Here's a movie that falls into a category titled "Under the Radar and Straight from the Heart." I have now forgiven director Brad Silberling for making Moonlight Mile, the painfully melodramatic weeper from 2002. The Lemony Snicket film helped get ...

The Ten is a comedy about the unlikeliest of subjects: The Ten Commandments. When I use the term "comedy," I do so loosely. This is one of those films where the humor is of the hit-and-miss variety, and it misses more often than it hits. The jok...