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Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, a re-make of the 1973 made-for-TV movie of the same name, is a haunted house movie whose success lies in the careful manner freshman director Troy Nixey steeps everything in a surfeit of atmosphere. It overflows. It suf...

I have done my best to avoid spoilers and, although I’d love to get into specifics about what’s wrong with the movie, such an approach would require revealing plot twists. So, although I won’t go that far, some of the “comparison” movies...

What propels filmmakers to make a sequel to a 20-year old film? Is it nostalgia for the brand of comedy that characterized the original? Is it desperation on everyone's part to revive flagging careers? Or is it Hollywood's acceptance that recogniz...

Eddie the Eagle is a classic “underdog overachieves” sports story complete with all the trappings. It’s the kind of film that pulls out all the stops to get an applauding audience to its feet. Terms like “feel good” and “upbeat” apply. ...

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is truly a tale for our time. Today, Corporate America may pay lip-service to the term "ethics," but the men and women at the top don't understand or care about the definition. There's only one word that means...

I want to give actor-turned-director Liev Schreiber credit for making his behind-the-camera debut a film that means something to him. One can easily see how Everything Is Illuminated could be a deeply personal effort. Unfortunately, the meaning a...

The negative buzz surrounding the troubled production of Fantastic Four might lead savvy viewers to approach the movie with apprehension. Perhaps surprisingly, it's no better or worse that the other superhero movies of 2015.  That says more ...

Because Fast Times at Ridgemont High arrived in movie theaters during the height of the '80s "teenspoitation" era, it has often been unfairly lumped together with Porky's and its successors and copycats. In reality, Fast Times is smarter and more per...

I will be surprised if this film does well in New York City. Yankees fans, accustomed to success, are still smarting from last year's humiliating debacle, and a romantic comedy that capitalizes on the Red Sox's triumph is unlikely to pack theaters ...

Despite embracing the tropes one associates with the Western, Michael Matthews’ Five Fingers of Marseilles transpires in an atypical locale: post-Colonial South Africa. Matthews reaffirms what Sergio Leone identified – the Western doesn’...