Movies starring Chris

If there is any living director who can do justice to the warped nature of Roald Dahl's "children's stories," it's Tim Burton. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory isn't the first time these two have "collaborated." Burton produced Henry Selick's anim...

Circle of Friends is the motion picture equivalent of a dime store romance novel. It has all the requisite elements -- it's a period piece (the bulk of the story takes place in the late 1950s); boasts women with heaving bosoms and a young, virile ...

Is it too much to ask that a narrative film have a beginning, a middle, and an end? Apparently in the case of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, a loose adaptation of Darren Shan's Vampire Blood trilogy, the answer is "yes." Developed with...

Growing up in New Jersey, I was of course aware of the existence of Action Park, an amusement park located in the northwestern portion of the state, not far from where my grandparents lived. Nevertheless, I turned down opportunities to visit for a...

We know from experience that Adam Sandler has a fondness for Frank Capra. After all, is there anything odder than watching Sandler channel Gary Cooper in a remake of Mr. Deeds (Goes to Town)? Actually, there is. It's watching Sandler channel Jim...

The decision to release The Cloverfield Project direct-to-streaming (DTS?) is not only a glimpse of how the future may look for middle-budget movies but a win-win for Paramount Pictures and Netflix. The studio has found a way to offload a whit...

When Clue was released around Christmas 1985, it was intended to spearhead a wave of based-on-board game movies. The film’s box office failure, coupled with poor critical notices and lukewarm viewer response, stopped the “craze” before i...

The “so bad it’s good” tag often applied to co-called “cult classics” is as elusive a categorization as there is in cinema. Most of the time, it evolves organically from the failure of a movie. Planning campiness is more apt to result in...

For his sophomore effort, filmmaker Rod Lurie turned his attention to the Oval Office. The Contender, a low-key political thriller that relies primarily on character interaction to develop tension, is a close cousin to Lurie's debut cinematic ...

Cookie's Fortune deserves to be appreciated on its own terms. A less-ambitious outing from veteran director Robert Altman (at least when compared to movies like Nashville, The Player, and Short Cuts), this movie delivers agreeable performances and...