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Evening, based on the 1998 bestseller by Susan Minot, is an example of a well-told familiar story. There are no surprises during the course of the film, which transpires across two time frames (1954 and 1998), but the strength of the screenplay an...

For those steeped in the lore of what Friday the 13th would become, watching the first movie can be a little surprising. Many of the long-running series' staples are either absent or toned down from where they would evolve. The gore is surprising...

The lasting image most people have of From Here to Eternity is of Sgt. Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) embracing Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) on the beaches of Hawaii with the surf churning around them. This iconic moment, emblazoned in the minds...

What movie-goers find funny has changed since the end of the silent era. Many of the pratfalls and hijinks that so delighted audiences in the 1910s and 1920s have long since ceased to provoke anything more full-bodied than a chuckle. Neverthel...

An interesting question occasioned by the release of Hannah Montana: The Movie is whether the motion picture incarnation of the popular TV show is catching the backend of the pop phenomenon wave. Certainly, when the 3D Miley Cyrus concert movie wa...

M. Night Shyamalan has always been something of an illusionist. Even at his best, he succeeds not because he's a masterful storyteller but because he's an expert at sleight-of-hand and pulling rabbits out of his hat. With The Lady in the Water, S...

For those who are fans of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's five-book "trilogy," I have two words of advice: Don't Panic! The 2005 film version of the book isn't nearly as bad as many Hitchhiker's lovers have feared. Of course, it's also not as good as i...

Sometimes, it's all about the cast. That comment isn't meant to disparage the scriptwriting of Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley, and Jonathan Goldstein, who offer their share of amusing situations and snappy one-liners, or the direction of Se...

In the Name of the King is a second-rate regurgitation of The Lord of the Rings. Everything about it, down to the set and costume design, apes Peter Jackson's epic trilogy. However, while The Lord of the Rings was a grand story of scope and power,...