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Airplane! has not aged well. The fine wine hasn't turned into vinegar but it's not as pleasant to the palate as it once was. Viewed more than 25 years after its initial release, Airplane! retains the capacity to tickle the funny bone, but someone u...

When Alien was first released during the summer movie season of 1979, science fiction films were all the rage. The trend had been started two years earlier with the unexpected box office success of Star Wars, and, by 1979, anything even remotely co...

Here's one important rule about film criticism and review writing: the harder you have to think to find something noteworthy or laudable about a motion picture, the less likely it is to get a recommendation. So, although there are some things to ...

The only thing as bad as bad comedy is bad action. Bad Boys II has plenty of both. In fact, those two things are all it has, unless you count the small helping of bad drama. When it comes to this movie, the word "bad" initially seems highly appr...

In my original, unpublished review of Basic Instinct (dated March 21, 1992), I wrote the following: "There's a fine line between eroticism and exploitation, and Basic Instinct treads it, using nudity, sex, and violence to cover up the limitations o...

Who would have imagined that the most appropriate word to describe Basic Instinct 2 would be "boring?" This plodding, pretentious follow-up to 1992's hit replaces Paul Verhoeven's lurid, over-the-top style with the leaden rhythms of Michael Caton-...

The press notes for Bee Movie indicate that Jerry Seinfeld came up with the title before he had an inkling what the story might be. Having seen the film, I can believe that. As befits something from Seinfeld's pen, the screenplay contains a smatter...

Chinatown is unquestionably one of the best films to emerge from the 1970s, a period that has been called the "last great decade of American cinema" by more than one movie critic. The production, which went in front of the cameras without a final ...

Since the release of Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton has become a Hollywood staple. Rights to each new novel are quickly optioned, and the resulting film is on the market as soon as ILM can get the special effects done. Congo is the fourth adapta...

Here's something to chew on: what's the favorite food of big, cheesy-looking special effects monsters like the one lurking in the bowels of a luxury liner in Deep Rising? The obvious answer to this question is cardboard, because that's the depth ...