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You know a movie is doing something wrong when you find yourself counting to determine whether, in fact, there are seven guardians (as opposed to, for example, six or eight). 7 Guardians of the Tomb, a shameless rip-off of James Cameron’s Ali...

The autumn movie season has a history of hosting impressive, thought-based science fiction movies. To a list that includes Gravity, Interstellar, Arrival, and The Martian, add Ad Astra, a film that uses space exploration as a means to look inw...

Can a great work of literature change a person's life? Whether or not you believe so, writer/director Dai Sijie, adapting his own novel (How many filmmakers can make that claim?), clearly does. The problem with the movie Balzac and the Little Chi...

Big Trouble in Little China was released at a time when John Carpenter’s white-hot career had begun a downward trajectory. His third feature starring Kurt Russell, Big Trouble matched the action-adventure elements of Escape from New York wit...

It’s February. That means it’s time for cold weather and snow, groundhogs having their day, and Liam Neeson coming out with yet another kick-ass action/thriller. (Do not confuse the term “kick-ass” with “good” or even “watchable.”)...

Bloodshot suffers from a world-building failure. With too little time and emphasis placed on crafting the setting and exploring some of the rich possibilities of the milieu in which events transpire, the movie turns into little more than a ho-...

"I finished shooting The Blue Kite in 1992. But while I was involved in post-production, several official organizations involved with China's film industry screened the film. They decided that it had a problem concerning its political 'leanings,'...

To Western audiences, Chandni Chowk to China will seem much like any Bollywood movie would seem: a rather astonishing mess. Like the cinematic equivalent of someone appearing on Mr. Blackwell's Ten Worst-Dressed list, the movie is a garish mix of ...

Chinatown is unquestionably one of the best films to emerge from the 1970s, a period that has been called the "last great decade of American cinema" by more than one movie critic. The production, which went in front of the cameras without a final ...