Movies with cinematographer Tom Stern

With the election of Barack Obama, we have apparently entered a kinder, gentler world in which films about racial harmony and goodwill to all men are becoming commonplace (at least during awards season). How else to explain the presence of both Th...

Who knew the life story of J. Edgar Hoover could be so arid? Actually, that's unfair, but there are stretches of J. Edgar when the proceedings seem to drag. Counterbalancing the occasional bursts of tedium, however, are a tremendous lead performanc...

Initially, the stage-to-screen transition of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys was expected to be helmed by Jon Favreau. When Favreau withdrew, it opened the door for veteran director Clint Eastwood to take the reins. Eastwood's approach to telling ...

I recommend The Last Kiss, but not without a misgiving or two. This movie is essentially a celebration of yuppie angst. It's about people in their late 20s who have issues with commitment and monogamy, who have lost their way and are trying to fin...

After decades of neutering, it’s fun to once again encounter a vampire who is bestial and monstrous. The vampires in this movie don’t sparkle when exposed to the sun, they burst into flame and die horribly. And the king of all un-dead, the leg...

Letters from Iwo Jima is a unique American-made war movie for at least two reasons: it depicts the battle from the perspective of the losers and it represents the United States as the "enemy." Coupled with Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Ji...

In a way, I feel like the victim of a bait-and-switch scheme.  The movie I saw isn’t the one advertised in the trailers. As marketed, The Meg looks like a breezy, campy monster movie that supersizes Jaws with an infusion of Jurassic Park. I...

Warning! Beginning with paragraph #4, there are spoilers. Viewers who like virginal movie experiences should proceed at their own risk. What a marvelous return to form Clint Eastwood has made following the disaster of Blood Work. In fact, one ...

With Mystic River, Clint Eastwood has rebounded nicely from the failure of his mediocre previous effort, Blood Work. Absent from the screen but behind the camera for the first time since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Eastwood concentrat...

Sometimes, it's virtually impossible to understand how things work in Hollywood. Crap like Captivity and Norbit get releases while offbeat, enjoyable productions like Romance and Cigarettes languish. The film received its world premiere two years...