Movies starring Jan

To describe The Ring, two adjectives leap to mind: spooky and lame. The former refers to the tone and atmosphere, which are about as good as it gets for a ghost story. The latter refers to the storyline, which is about as poorly constructed as c...

What if they made a Jack Black movie and Jack Black didn't show up? That's sort of the feeling I get with The Rocker although, truth be told, Rainn Wilson does an admirable Black impersonation. This warmed-over, recycled stew brings the "comeback...

Role Models takes a familiar PG-rated plot and adds enough profanity and nudity to earn it a family unfriendly R. Sadly, an injection of raunchiness does not equate to an increase in quality and, while Role Models can boast the occasionally funny ...

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is one of the most inconsequential big-screen cartoons to reach theaters this year. It’s also one of the most disappointing releases to come from Dreamworks Animation, the studio responsible for such beloved mode...

Seeking Justice is making a token theatrical stop on the fast track to home video (which is where the distributor, Anchor Bay, makes most of its money). A cheap and cheesy thriller that feels like it was (badly) adapted from a beach novel (although...

She Dies Tomorrow belongs to a film category that is sometimes referred to as “existential horror,” which prioritizes atmosphere over characters and narrative and a creeping sense of dread over more tangible, jump-in-your-seat scares. Ther...

Commandment Five: "Thou shalt not kill." A Short Film About Killing, Krzysztof Kieslowski's powerful examination of the nature of murder, was a stunning success at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, taking home the Jury prize. In the same year, t...

Somewhere in Simon Birch, buried not too deeply beneath the surface, lie the seeds of a moving story. Unfortunately, as told by Mark Steven Johnson, this loose adaptation of John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany" is a relentlessly manipulativ...

The Skin I Live In is an old-time horror movie told in anything but an old-time horror movie fashion by the iconoclast Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar. There’s a mad scientist, a faithful servant, a beautiful woman trapped in a prison, and...

It’s hard to imagine any version of Richard Matheson’s 1975 novel Bid Time Return working. The level of suspension of disbelief is so high that, although can be achieved in a written work, where the imagination is engaged, the same is not true...