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If elements of 1408 seem a little familiar, it shouldn't be a surprise. Here's John Cusack, once again having lodging problems (see also Identity). Here's a supernatural debunker faced with something that refuses to be debunked (see also The Reap...

211 (the name refers to the police code for a robbery) is a frustrating crime thriller that incorporates too many plot threads into the overall narrative at the expense of character identification, suspense, and emotional heft. Despite a high ...

When you're young, you live your life looking forward. The future looms larger and more full of promise than the past, and everyone not afflicted with incurable pessimism believes that the best is yet to come. But all things age, and die, and wit...

To sum up Alexander in three words, I would choose the following: three-hour miscalculation. Although some aspects of Oliver Stone's sword-and-sandals epic are worthy of mention (and even praise), they are dwarfed by the missteps and examples of b...

In a bygone era, something like Bandit would have been a TV movie of the week. All these years later, it retains the look and feel of something not quite “theatrical” in its ambitions. If it has any future as a streaming rental, such hopes lik...

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 ...

Birdman (subtitled Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is an ensemble film about theater life that occasionally takes time away from its dramatic/comedic narrative to skewer the pop culture sensibilities that have given rise to the so-called "mo...

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...

Body of Lies is an adult thriller with such a high narrative density that even a brief trip to the restroom may result in key plot points being lost. The film is the antithesis of a slick, superficial feature like Eagle Eye. It both demands and re...

Writer/director Paul Schrader makes moody, low-budget movies about isolated people. While his highly regarded reputation as a screenwriter is deserved (he wrote, among other titles, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver), his directorial resume is checke...