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Let me start out by saying that Buried isn't a lot of fun, but it is raw and compelling. In the same way it's impossible to turn away from a grisly accident, taking your eyes away from Ryan Reynolds' hypnotizing performance is not an option. Ther...

At first glance, Burlesque appears to be a mostly de-sleazed remake of Showgirls, but perhaps that's a little on the cruel side. Unlike Showgirls, which was start-to-finish unpleasant despite all the nudity and campiness, Burlesque is sporadically...

Guilt and paranoia - two powerful cornerstones of the human psyche. In his latest, award-winning drama (it has captured about a dozen significant international citations), writer/director Michael Haneke explores both, although the manner in which ...

Note: some spoilers discussing differences between the book and movie.I’ll admit to being disappointed by the newest adaptation of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. The motion capture technology that creates a dog out of the efforts of a...

Spoiler Alert! Nothing overt but I hint at some plot developments that some readers may not want to know about until after they’ve seen the movie. Depends on your concerns about a “virgin movie-going experience.” Despite the name...

It's fair to say that superhero saturation has set in. Not many years ago, every cinematic version of a comic book protagonist's adventures was awaited with baited breath. Now, because of an unceasing and sometimes careless flood of such titles, ma...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier represents the first film from Marvel Studios since The Avengers to capture the true superhero spirit: plenty of derring-do, action, adventure, and an ending that doesn't fall apart. A sequel to 2011's Captain Am...

Love comes in many forms -- platonic, romantic, and sexual -- and this is the issue at the heart of Carrington, a cinematic biography of artist Dora Carrington and her near-lover, writer Lytton Strachey. Though Dora, a heterosexual woman who didn'...

For 2019’s Big Holiday Musical Extravaganza, Hollywood has gone all the way back to 1981 to choose the source material. The concept of making a motion picture version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s immensely successful stage play, Cats, has both...

Cedar Rapids is a quirky comedy that crossbreeds two common cinematic staples: the mismatched buddy movie and the fish-out-of-water scenario. With elements culled from the mainstream smash The Hangover and the indie cult favorite Napoleon Dynamite,...