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Creed III is the first Rocky movie without Rocky. Considering the imbalance created by the Stallone/Jordan dynamic in Creed II, the decision to excise the Italian Stallion from the narrative framework makes sense. The Creed movies need to move forw...

If nothing else, The Many Saints of Newark recaptures the feel and aesthetic of David Chase’s The Sopranos, the TV series that was frequently cited as the best television had to offer during the eight years when it was on (and off) the air. ...

Respect uses vignettes to provide an overview of the early years of Aretha Franklin’s life and career. Along the way, the movie touches on a number of weighty issues including domestic abuse, alcoholism, and Civil Rights activism. The film c...

Although the subject matter of divorce no longer carries the whiff of controversy and scandal it once did, Kramer vs. Kramer has lost none of its power in the forty years since its release. That’s because, although divorce has been normalize...

Creed II, the follow-up to 2015’s surprisingly successful Creed, runs afoul of a common problem to plague unplanned sequels: the need to match audience expectations trumps all other concerns, including creative latitude. The eighth installment...

Call it The Golden Compass rule: No multi-part movie series should be started without a reasonable certainty that the story will be told in full. And, although The Golden Compass’ planned sequels were the first recent films to fall afoul of t...

Rebel in the Rye, which tells the story of author J.D. Salinger, falls into the pernicious trap that ensnares many a bio-pic: trying to present too broad a chronology in too limited a time. Utilizing an unwieldy structure that involves a flash...

He's back. After not appearing in a Terminator film for 12 years, Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to one of the roles that made him the biggest action star of the '80s and early '90s. Will anyone care? This is the seventh film Schwa...

Thor: The Dark World offers the kind of straightforward action/adventure yarn that adherents of the genre will appreciate. It's an example of superhero filmmaking 101 at work with high octane fights and special effects-fueled eye candy trumping nar...

Crossing Over is Wayne Kramer's Crash-inspired look at the world of immigration in Southern California. Like Paul Haggis' Oscar winning film, this one is replete with coincidences and contrivances but, unlike Crash, it also features too many insta...