Movies starring Dan

If one was going to cite a movie title for truth in advertising, it might be James Mangold’s Bob Dylan bio-pic, A Complete Unknown because, at the end of the proceedings, it’s an apt description of the main character. The reason it clear: Mang...

Con Air, producer Jerry Bruckheimer's generic follow-up to 1996's blockbuster, The Rock, is the kind of motion picture that critics refer to when they moan about the "dumbing down" of American cinema. This movie is a perfect example of what's wron...

It has been a long time since I came as close to walking out of a movie as I did with Confessions of a Shopaholic. Not only did I find this production to be irritating, unfunny, and lacking in entertainment value, but I found its underlying slavis...

For his follow-up to City of God, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles has elected to adapt John Le Carré's The Constant Gardener into movie form. A slow-burn thriller simmering with international intrigue, the book would at first seem too long ...

Cowboys & Aliens is a mashup of a mediocre Western and a mediocre science fiction story. The resulting film is far better than the sum of its two seemingly disparate parts. Although a little overlong, the production will find favor not only with l...

Ensemble features can be daunting, yet some filmmakers embrace the challenge, and their results reward an audience. A lot of characters are woven into the tapestry of Crash, the feature directing debut of TV veteran Paul Haggis. (Haggis was also O...

The Crazies, which is based on the 1973 George A. Romero film of the same name (Romero gets an Executive Producer credit for this one), continues the trend of recent films to delve into apocalyptic scenarios. Granted, in this case, it's just a smal...

At first glance, Creative Control appears to be sci-fi. It takes place in the (near) future and focuses on technology that probably isn’t far from being accessible. On closer examination, however, it at times plays more like an absurdist comedy...

As movie-goers, we have become accustomed to seeing our screen heroes as immutable and immortal. This is in part the result of how film can freeze a moment. Humphrey Bogart will always look the way he does when saying “Here’s looking at y...

Creed II, the follow-up to 2015’s surprisingly successful Creed, runs afoul of a common problem to plague unplanned sequels: the need to match audience expectations trumps all other concerns, including creative latitude. The eighth installment...