Movies starring Dan

Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager wrote “No need to remember when, 'Cause everything old is new again.” Lately, that has become the Disney way: take a classic animated film and remake it into something that, although shiny and eye-po...

Beloved, Jonathan Demme's much-anticipated adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel, is a powerful and disturbing motion picture that is likely to leave many movie-goers unsettled as they file out of the theater. Although the movie probably runs a litt...

One of the criteria I often use to determine whether a documentary biography is “good” (as opposed to “mediocre”) is whether it provides something beyond what I could find by perusing the Wikipedia article about the subject. In the cas...

The legend of Beowulf, a mythical hero whose exploits were recounted in an 8th century epic poem, has gained unprecedented popularity some 1250 years after it was first told. With the success of The Lord of the Rings, which (along with the Harry P...

Wars, no matter when they are fought or which weapons are employed, share many common characteristics. One is that the cheapest currency is human life. Another is that even the winners pay a toll. And a third is that many soldiers, upon returnin...

About the kindest thing that can be said about Better Off Dead is that it’s a product of its time. Seen today, the movie is painfully dated and littered with unfunny material and broad “acting” that was somehow thought to be amusing. Yet,...

Tim Burton's name is on the credits but Big Eyes doesn't feel at all like the visually eccentric, gothic-tinged productions we normally expect from the offbeat director. Oh, there are some "Burton-esque" moments, like a vacation in ...

Mike Nichols, the director of such well-received films as The Graduate and Working Girl, has taken the outrageous 1978 French farce, La Cage aux Folles, and, by tweaking, updating, and Americanizing it, come up with a huge winner. The Birdcage, as...

If nothing else, The Black Cauldron has become the most infamous of all of Disney's animated motion pictures. When it was first released in the summer of 1985, it was to have re- invigorated Disney' moribund animated division, which had produce...

During the past year, several of the studios releasing superhero movies have upped their game, moving into new territory without tossing aside the tropes that differentiate comic book-inspired fare from its traditional action/adventure cousin....