Search for David

I have never been a Raymond Chandler fan nor am I enamored with the pulp detective genre that was oh-so-popular during the early decades of the 20th century. Consequently, my only exposure to Philip Marlowe (Chandler’s most popular character) ha...

Martian Child wants to make us cry. It nearly made me gag. This is an exercise in shameless and inept emotional manipulation. The film doesn't try to hide what it's doing. If you don't cry, it hasn't worked. There's not a single genuine human e...

At the end of the 1964 film Mary Poppins, the character of Bert (played by Dick Van Dyke) offers this final wish: “Goodbye, Mary Poppins, don't stay away too long.” Walt Disney Pictures hopes that 54 years – the longest span between a mot...

It's not hard to be enthusiastic about The Matador, an uncommon buddy film starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear. The movie has a nicely modulated mix of comedy and pathos, but succeeds as much because of the two lead performances as Richard She...

Arriving in the latter half of the summer, Danny DeVito's Matilda beats out such worthy contenders as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Harriet the Spy for best family fare of the season. In fact, I haven't enjoyed a so-called "children's film" this...

It’s unusual for a series lasting four movies to follow the consistent downward trend evidenced by The Matrix cycle. The first movie, 1999’s The Matrix, started things off with a bang. Sadly, the first sequel, 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded, was...

The endless summer, when one day bleeds into the next to stock a catalog of memories… For many families, the summer vacation, whether at a lake or a beach, is an annual ritual – occasionally hated at the time yet looked on with fondness th...

Memory - it is one of the key elements that separates human beings from animals. It is one of the basic building blocks of personality. Who we are is shaped as much by our experiences as by our environment. Memory can also be unreliable, not to ...

Sitting down to watch Memory, I was prepared for yet another Liam Neeson-As-Righteous-Avenger movie (the kind of thing that has inexplicably become his bread-and-butter since the success of Taken). Much to my surprise, however, Neeson and director...

I define a "boo!" moment as an instant in a movie when there is a loud sound, usually accompanied by a musical stinger and occasionally in concert with the fast pass of an unidentifiable object across a portion of the camera's field of view. The i...