Movies starring Dan

If I knew definitively what the plural was for the term deus ex machina, I’d apply it here. Rarely can I remember a movie filled with so many miraculous rescues and associated contrivances. The Death Cure represents the final chapter in a mo...

In the pantheon of YA ("Young Adult") dystopian book-turned-movie series, if The Hunger Games occupies the pinnacle then The Maze Runner sits in the basement. After an encouraging and engaging first half of the first film, The Maze Runner h...

Me and Orson Welles is about the theater, or at least the theater as it was in the 1930s. Based on the semi-fictional novel by Robert Kaplow and set in New York City around the time of the opening of the Mercury Theater, the film is rich in period ...

Spoilers: This review contains spoilers for those who haven’t read the source material and/or don’t know where the story is going. There are bad tearjerkers and good tearjerkers. There are Nicolas Sparks films and movies like Me Before...

Although Mean Girls is likely to be frequently compared to Heathers, and perhaps occasionally to Election, the movie it most strongly reminds me of is 1999's Jawbreaker. All four of these films offer a darkly satirical perspective of high school a...

The endless summer, when one day bleeds into the next to stock a catalog of memories… For many families, the summer vacation, whether at a lake or a beach, is an annual ritual – occasionally hated at the time yet looked on with fondness th...

I am not a fan of Meet the Parents, the 2000 film that introduced Ben Stiller to the joys of having an ex-CIA agent as a potential father-in-law. The movie is too much like a sit-com, although, as a counterbalance, it offers several big laughs. Me...

What has happened to Robert De Niro's career? Once referred to as one of the top working American actors, De Niro has seen his talents wasted countless times in recent years as he has chosen one bad project after another. The list of titles reads...

It's tempting to label Meet the Robinsons as just another in a long line of recent computer animated kid-traps, but it deserves a more upbeat description. Thankfully, we're not subjected to the new staple of the big-screen cartoon - anthropomorphi...

"It's my considered opinion that in the fullness of time, history will record the greatness of [Michael] Collins and it will be recorded at my expense." -- Eamon De Valera, President of the Republic of Ireland, 1966 Of the more than five dozen...