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It's a genuine pleasure to come across a motion picture like The Last Samurai - a rousing tale that combines high adventure with emotional effectiveness. This movie works because it never loses sight of the characters no matter how epic the scope ...

Legends of the Fall is the sort of epic melodrama that only Hollywood can do this well. It's a spectacle more than a show, with soaring moments of triumph and tragedy. Words like "restraint" and "subtle" are meaningless in this context. The late...

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...

It has been several years since I've read a book by John Grisham (I believe the last one was The Client). After three or four of Grisham's novels, I grew tired of the predictable repetitiveness and contrived suspense of the narratives. As a resul...

Just when it was starting to look like the concept of a "funny comedy" has gone out of vogue, along comes Pineapple Express and its cinematic cousin, Tropic Thunder. The latter film, which has emerged from the warped mind of Ben Stiller, is a litt...

Vanilla Sky (the name refers to a painting by Monet) is the quirkily titled American remake of the 1997 Spanish language feature, Open Your Eyes. Like its predecessor, Vanilla Sky is a mind-bending excursion across genres - a warped fairy tale tha...