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2008 was the year in which the comic book superhero came of age. Films like Iron Man and especially The Dark Knight illustrated what was possible when a motion picture dared to take its characters out of the comfortable box in which too many super...

Where's the Kryptonite? What many movie producers fail to realize is that one of the keys to making a superhero interesting is to give him an Achilles heel - Kryptonite, so to speak. And one of the big problems with XXX: State of the Union is t...

As a writer by trade (at least before he started directing), David Koepp should know that a good ending is at least as important as a good beginning, if not more so.  You Should Have Left, a haunted house movie that doubles as an homage to St...

When assessing the small motion picture sub-genre of the "fantasy comedy," it's necessary to acknowledge that the impregnable pinnacle is occupied by Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride, a classic whose prominence may never be challenged. Your Highnes...

Watching Youth, you’d swear Fellini had risen from his grave and returned to make another movie. With minimal narrative thrust, this film gets by on its spellbinding images, superior acting, and dreamlike tone. Most movies tell a story; Youth i...

An interesting synergy exists between Judd Apatow and Kevin Smith. With films like Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy, Smith opened a door that, about 10 years later, Apatow walked through. Now, with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Smith has fully and ...

Calling Zathura the "space version of Jumanji" wouldn't be far off. Like the 1995 film, this movie is based on a children's book by celebrated author Chris Van Allsburg in which a group of people plays an amazing board game. (Van Allsburg doesn't...

Zodiac is a police procedural - a sort of souped-up, ultra-long episode of Law & Order. Based on the 1986 "true crime" book by Robert Graysmith, the movie looks back on one of the nation's most sinister unsolved crimes: the Northern California ser...

Simply put, most horror films are not scary. There are exceptions, of course, but those are increasingly rare. I think the last horror movie that had me on edge may have been The Mist, and that was released two years ago. Nevertheless, the genre...