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Wildling starts out strongly but the qualities that make the first 20 minutes engrossing and harrowing drain away and the movie morphs into a thoroughly unsatisfying excursion into fantasy-tinged horror. As directed by first time feature film...

There have been two major waves of fantasy movies. The latest (and most would argue, the most successful) began in the late 1990s with the releases of The Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The earlier one occur...

Released during the summer of 1971, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was envisioned as a transformation of Roald Dahl’s twisted fable of gluttony and greed into a family-friendly musical. Inspired by The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka sought ...

Love in tennis doesn't have to be bad, as Richard Loncraine's Wimbledon shows. A formulaic motion picture that delights in spite of (or perhaps because of?) its reliance upon conventions, Wimbledon is the kind of movie that allows the non-cynical ...

One reasonable way to judge a romantic comedy is to ask how strong a rooting interest the viewer has in the coupling that is destined to occur at the end of the film. In Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, the desire is lukewarm. The central flaw here...

Wings was one of the late silent era's epic spectacles - a combination adventure/romance that took the viewer back a mere ten years to what was, at the time, the most pivotal and traumatic event of the new century: World War I. At the time of its ...

At first glance, The Winslow Boy might seem like an improbable choice for David Mamet's sixth directorial effort. Adapted from the play by Terence Rattigan (which has already been filmed once, in 1948 by Anthony Asquith), The Winslow Boy is set in...

Winter Passing is a classic example of a pedestrian motion picture being lifted out of mediocrity by an arresting lead performance. Zooey Deschanel doesn't just elevate Winter Passing; she carries it. There are other things to be said in favor of...

Winter's Bone offers a case study in the essential philosophical differences between independent motion picture thrillers and Hollywood/mainstream ones. The third feature from director Debra Granik and winner of two awards at the 2010 Sundance Fil...

We live in a cynical world. A romantic fairy tale like Winter's Tale might have worked better in a kinder, gentler age but, in today's era of sarcasm and scorn, its flaws (of which there are many) are magnified. For something this sentimental to wo...