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An American Werewolf in Paris is a failed attempt to recapture the humor and horror of John Landis' 1981 feature, An American Werewolf in London. Where the original had comedy, the sequel has the kind of revolting silliness that can be found in TV...

There are two kinds of thrillers - action-oriented endeavors such as those popularized by James Bond and Jason Bourne, and slow-burn motion pictures that rely less on pyrotechnics and gadgets and more on psychology. The American belongs in the lat...

Yasujiro Ozu is widely regarded as one of Japan’s two greatest filmmakers. Unlike his contemporary, Akira Kurosawa, Ozu didn’t receive worldwide recognition until after his death in 1963. Although Kurosawa was well-known in the West during...

Screened in standard (non-IMAX) digital 3D. Avatar has been described as a "game-changer," and perhaps it is. I'll leave that for future historians to determine. What I can say with some assuredness is this is the most technically amazing motio...

The majority of this review is taken from what I wrote in 2009. I have tweaked and edited it to update it for 2022. Following the main review are a few new comments written following my re-watching of the film on September 23, 2022.Avatar has been d...

The build-up for Avatar: Fire and Ash wasn’t quite as intense as the one between the original Avatar and its first sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, due in large part to the shorter span between releases (three years versus thirteen). As was true...

It’s finally here. After years of missed release dates related to postproduction issues, James Cameron’s oft-delayed sequel to 2009’s Avatar has finally arrived. Was it worth the 13-year wait? Unquestionably. It’s difficult to overstate ho...

"We're gonna be too big for Hamburg. We're gonna be too big for Liverpool. We're gonna be too big for our own bloody good." - John Lennon, Backbeat Oliver Stone probably loves this film. Not only is Backbeat a story from "his" era, the ear...

Barb Wire has the cleavage of a Russ Meyer film without the jiggle. If someone was going to make a campy version of Casablanca, you'd think they'd at least have the decency to make it fun. Unfortunately, other than a couple of very obvious, ab...

"Time never dies. The circle is not round." As well as being a repeated line in Before the Rain, this statement clarifies director Milcho Manchevski's perspective. The film is an exploration of the vicious circle that is violence in the Balkans,...