Movies in the Drama/Comedy genre

Stepmom is the kind of bad movie that can be blamed on just about everyone involved except, perhaps, the actors. There's nothing wrong with any of the performances, although they're wasted in the service of inferior material. The script is a mish...

In the past, it has been difficult to get the public interested in political films. This is especially true of younger viewers who are not old enough to participate in the voting process. 2008 may be different, however, with the "rock star" candi...

Warning: As with most retrospective reviews, this reveals key plot points. Spoilers abound.Undoubtedly, one of the reasons why James L. Brooks’ feature debut, the three-hankie weeper Terms of Endearment, won the Oscar for Best Picture is tha...

This Is Where I Leave You is a card-carrying member of the "family reunion" category of motion pictures wherein circumstances bring together characters whose once-close relationships have grown distant over the years. The mechanism by which this ha...

“Raped While Dying”, “And Still No Arrests”, “How Come, Chief Willoughby?” The text of those three billboards establishes a narrative but, although that’s the starting point for Martin McDonagh’s stellar Three Billboards Outside...

When it comes to tales about the hand's opposable digit, there have been Thumbelina, Tom Thumb, and now Thumbsucker. A quirky character piece that could just as easily go by the title of Ritalin Nation, Thumbsucker boasts a strong character arc, s...

Saying that Tin Cup may be the best-ever "golf motion picture" isn't exactly high praise, considering the competition (Caddyshack, Happy Gilmore), but it's true nonetheless. In fact, as sports movies go (regardless of the sport), this one turns in...

I’m tempted to call Together Together a romantic comedy because it has some of the rhythms one commonly associates with the genre. However, that would be mislabeling Nikole Beckwith’s sophomore film. Although there is love and affection in...

In 2014, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son missed the #1 spot on my annual Top 10 list by a whisker (it was one of three films that year to which I awarded four stars). A few years later, his Shoplifters topped the l...

Up and Down, from renowned Czech director Jan Hrebejk, is a mix of drama and black comedy, with a fair amount of social commentary stirred in. It targets racism and social injustice while developing characters we gradually come to sympathize with....