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Rarely can it be said that a film has defined a genre, but never is that more true than in the case of The Godfather. Since the release of the 1972 epic (which garnered ten Academy Award nominations and was named Best Picture), all "gangster movie...

Frankenstein. The Old Dark House. The Invisible Man. The Bride of Frankenstein. Show Boat. Although this may sound like one of those "which doesn't belong" games, there is a common element to all five '30s motion pictures - they are the en...

The success of Going My Way, a mediocre, light drama with a few songs, is a testimony to the overall popularity of the musical genre in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. There's nothing special or memorable about this overlong endeavor, the first of two m...

The Golden Door might have worked better as a documentary. The subject matter - that of third-class immigrants making their way to the New World at the beginning of the 20th century - is fascinating material, and director Emanuele Crialese include...

When reading the Winnie the Pooh books as a child, I remember being amazed by the revelation that Christopher Robin was a “real” boy. That caused me to wonder whether all the animals were real, too. Goodbye Christopher Robin tells the sto...

Grand Illusion looks back on the 20th century’s first global conflict from the perspective of a world on the brink of an even greater war. This film, which was cited by Joseph Goebbels as “Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1” when he sought to ...

The Greatest Show on Earth, the penultimate film credited to Cecil B. DeMille, contains all the elements loved by the great director: larger-than-life characters, sumptuous visuals, a long running time, and cutting-edge special effects. Althou...

When the invasion of Iraq transpired in 2003, assurances came down from on high that this act was necessary to remove the clear and present danger represented by Sadaam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (this is when the acronym WMD entered the...

The Grocer's Son is a pleasant, low-key drama about the healing power of country life. While one could argue that is has been three decades since such a "back-to-nature" theme was in vogue, it makes for an effective background to the story of how ...

The mention of Pinocchio generally stirs up memories of the 1940 Disney animated feature, which (at the time) was the greatly anticipated follow-up to 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Today, Disney’s Pinocchio is regarded as one of the...