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Since the death of Alfred Hitchcock, many filmmakers have vied to succeed the Master of Suspense. With apologies to rip-off artist Brian De Palma, my vote goes to David Mamet, whose films House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner can stand alongside ...

At first glance, Inherent Vice might seem to be a detective story. Look a little closer, however, and it becomes clear that this is Paul Thomas Anderson's idea of a comedy. There's slapstick, lowbrow material, and enough strange characters an...

It’s clear that director Judd Apatow is comfortable collaborating with stand-up comedians on projects that contain at least some autobiographical details. The King of Staten Island represents his third such film, following in the wake of Fun...

Across-the-board strong performances represent the upside of King Richard, director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s part bio-pic/part hagiography of Richard Williams (Will Smith), the (in)famous father of all-time tennis greats Venus (Saniyya Sidney) an...

With Magnolia, director Paul Thomas Anderson has segued into the realm of the three hour movie. It's an ambitious step to take - making lengthy, ensemble movies with tangentially related and occasionally interconnected storylines can be a risky en...

Welcome to George Clooney season. Those who find the actor, who has been described by some as a modern day Cary Grant, engaging will have reason to smile as Hollywood begins its annual push toward the Oscars. Clooney will bring his winning person...

When it comes to motion pictures, there are essentially two kinds of thrillers: visceral thrillers, which rely on action to generate tension and excitement, and intellectual thrillers, which burn more slowly but are often more satisfying in the end...

Ghost Protocol is the fourth big screen Mission: Impossible movie and the closest the 15-year old franchise has gotten to being an unofficial James Bond adventure. Globe-trotting and action-saturated, the movie offers everything a good 007 yarn sho...

2015 has been a banner year for action-oriented spy movies. One early entry, Kingsman: The Secret Service, was a Valentine to '60s British titles. A similar claim could be made about the upcoming The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In November, James Bond wi...

Nightcrawler is a dark and cynical movie for a nihilistic age. It's tense and at times uncomfortable, perhaps because the viewer recognizes that, although the story is fiction, there's a lot of truth in what it has to say about local news and the i...