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Untraceable engenders a reaction that is one part fascination, one part disappointment, and two parts frustration. The film, which has the ingredients for a thoughtful, tense thriller throws away a compelling first half so it can descend into silli...

The "usual suspects" are five men: Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), an ex-cop-turned-crook who's known for his steely demeanor and nerves of iron; Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), a psycho entry man; Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), a hardware specialis...

Is it unfair to compare Luc Besson to Michael Bay? Some would argue that it is but I’m not sure Besson would be among them. Both directors make the movies they want to make and, although there’s more artistry evident in Besson’s work, th...

Going into this film, I wondered whether the filmmakers would succeed at generating tension out of an event whose outcome is so well-known. Even those with only a rudimentary knowledge of history are aware that Hitler did not die as the result of ...

It seems that movie makers have lost the art of creating a good, scary vampire flick. The last such film to grace the screen was probably Fright Night, and that was a decade ago. Since then, the "sensitive" vampire has come into vogue -- a creatu...

A general rule of summer film watching is to beware any August release featuring a major star. The only reason for a distributor to hold back such a production is a lack of faith in the picture's ability to succeed in the highly-competitive early ...

Maybe I just don't understand the French sense of humor. After all, they think Jerry Lewis is a comic genius. Whatever the reason, I rarely find "lowbrow" French comedies more than passably watchable (and, in the case of Little Indian, Big City, ...

Thirty minutes into Waiting for Guffman, my stomach hurt from laughing. Like some of the most brilliant comedies of recent years -- Clerks, Living in Oblivion, and Flirting with Disaster, to name a few -- Waiting for Guffman reminds us of the true...

During its short lifespan, the original World Trade Center hosted a number of strange and surreal occurrences but perhaps none was more astonishing than the tightwire walk by Frenchman Philippe Petit. The event took place during the morning of August...

It would be fair to characterize writer/director Paul Schrader as someone who's fascinated by the seamier side of human nature. Some of his best known screenplays, including Taxi Driver and Raging Bull for Martin Scorsese, have plumbed the depths ...