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The Girl Next Door builds up enough good will during its successful first half that we're willing to forgive some of the strange and disappointing convolutions the plot takes us through during the final 45 minutes. There are two primary reasons wh...

Early every autumn, there's one excellent studio movie released - a way to kick off the Oscar race and remind adult viewers that it's still possible to find intelligent, compelling movies in theaters. In 2014, that film is Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn...

One hot summer day in 1988, I emerged from a movie theater exhilarated by what I had just experienced. The film in question was the original Die Hard, one of the best thrillers of the decade and, one could argue, an all-time Top 10 entry for the ge...

The desire for familiarity in movies can lead to sequels and re-makes, but that doesn't always have to be the case. It can also mean the use of storyline everyone sitting in the theater knows. A Good Year is a respectable retelling of the "back to ...

For those who think reviewing films is easy and fun, I offer Grandma's Boy as my rebuttal. That's 96 minutes (plus travel time) and $6.00 (matinee price) that I'll never get back, no matter what I write here. Legal theft. This is one of those mov...

You have to give a film maker credit for exhibiting the necessary chutzpah to take one of the most beloved classics in the English language, Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, and transform it into a modern-day morality play/romance. Viewers...

Not since Robert Altman's The Player has a film been this relentless in its satirical attack. The Great White Hype takes the boxing industry and rips it open, displaying the rotting, putrid innards for all to see. There are times when this movie ...

In style, if not substance, The Greatest Showman is reminiscent of the Disney film, Newsies. Like the 1992 live-action musical, The Greatest Showman comes to life when the characters are singing or dancing but struggles through the sequences i...

With the arrival of this "adaptation" of Gulliver's Travels, author Jonathan Swift must be spinning in his grave fast enough to make a top dizzy. If Swift was alive, no doubt he'd demand that his name be removed from the credits. Little of his sati...

M. Night Shyamalan has always been something of an illusionist. Even at his best, he succeeds not because he's a masterful storyteller but because he's an expert at sleight-of-hand and pulling rabbits out of his hat. With The Lady in the Water, S...