Movies starring Dan

It seems that every new comedy to arrive in theaters pushes the envelope further, daring the MPAA to give it an NC-17. Scary Movie, from the demented and very funny minds of the Wayans Brothers, becomes the latest motion picture to risk censure in...

For nearly as long as there have been horror movies, filmmakers have had fun trolling the genre. The first “official” such entry was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein but that offbeat film, which featured many of the sanctioned Universal M...

To the extent that there’s a difference between “big screen cartoons” and “animated features,” The Secret Life of Pets 2 comes closer to the former than the latter on the spectrum of non-live-action motion picture entertainment. The ...

About 20 minutes into The Secret Life of Pets, an entertaining but inconsequential animated movie, I was struck by a powerful feeling of déjà vu. It didn’t take long for me to ascertain the cause. The Secret of Pets is pretty much...

In content, setting, and cast choice, The Secret of Roan Inish is a departure for writer/director John Sayles. The creative force behind such memorable and diverse films as Matewan, City of Hope, Eight Men Out, and Passion Fish, has taken pen and ...

As Shaun of the Dead illustrated, it is possible to make a horror comedy that is both funny and scary. Severance, while not nearly as successful as Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's zombie movie, manages to mix in a few good gags with the requisite go...

One of the great action movie staples is the story of a grim survivor bonding with and becoming the protector of a child. This adoptive parent/child relationship, if handled with a degree of finesse, can add a layer of depth to high-caliber set pi...

It's a rare thing when an individual performance defines an entire film, but it happens once or twice per year. Such is the case with Sherrybaby, the feature debut of Laurie Collyer. A simple tale of one woman's attempts to re-connect with her yo...

The Shining is a curious motion picture. On the one hand, as a ghost story and adaptation of the Stephen King novel, it's largely a failure. On the other hand, as an example of directorial bravura and as a study of madness and the unreliable narr...

We live in a world in which conspiracy theories abound, so it comes as no surprise that many thrillers incorporate governmental backstabbing, double-dealing, and cover-ups into the fabric of their story. In a time when paranoia and distrust of the...