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Some Christmas films are designed as family-friendly romps that can be enjoyed by all as a holiday confection. (Perfect example: A Christmas Story.) Others are adult-oriented fare that might make the Grinch blush. (Perfect example: Bad Santa.) Then...

Renaissance is the latest in a growing range of screen titles with a graphic novel sensibility. Coming in the wake of Sin City, Renaissance treads through similar territory, but with a striking difference: director Christian Volckman uses rotoscop...

The last time Nicolas Cage bared his fangs – in 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss – his performance was widely criticized (and, in some circles, praised) for being outlandishly campy. Now, some 35 years later, Cage has channeled the same zany zeitgeis...

Memo to director Chris Columbus: In most cases, it's a bad idea for a movie to be a direct representation of a play. "Opening up" the setting is sometimes not all that's necessary to make a stage production into something cinematic. In a theater...

When it comes to the annual Liam Neeson cash-grab, I have learned to temper my expectations. A guilty pleasure would seem to be an attainable goal, although those instances have been more the exception than the rule lately. The problem is that Nee...

Ride Along, the new action/comedy starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, defies the cliché that you can't judge a book by its cover. Nothing unexpected lurks beneath a bland and predictable exterior. Those who have seen a 30-second TV commercial (or t...

The apocalyptic scenario is one that nearly everyone born after 1945 has had to consider at one time or another. From the '50s through the '80s, it was the potential of a nuclear holocaust. Now, it's terrorism. Living with the ongoing possibility ...

Robots is every bit as visually engaging as the best of the Pixar (or Dreamworks) digitally animated fare. The landscapes are stunning, the characters are intricately formed, there's plenty of break-neck action, and Robin Williams provides a helpi...

Rock of Ages, based on the musical play of the same name, is a celebration of '80s excess and, especially, music. Featuring roughly two-dozen covers of (mostly) Top 40 hits by Sytx, Def Leppard, REO Speedwagon, Whitesnake, Starship, Pat Benatar, Gu...

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” Perhaps those words don’t mean as much as they did a couple of decades ago but they still have the capacity to raise goose bumps. And, although Rogue One, the first so-called &ldqu...