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Finally, the entire Barrytown Trilogy has made it to the screen. The process started back in 1991, when Alan Parker made The Commitments. It continued in '93, when Stephen Frears filmed The Snapper. Now, with the addition of 1996's The Va...

Victoria and Abdul, based on (mostly) true events as related in Shrabani Basu’s historical chronicle of the same name, is effectively a sequel to the 1997 film, Mrs. Brown. That movie, directed by John Madden, detailed Queen Victoria’s fri...

There are times when iconic characters should be left alone to bask in the glory of a single appearance and, unfortunately, that's the case with Gordon Gekko. The supremely charismatic, magnetically villainous central figure from Oliver Stone's 19...

The problem with War Dogs isn’t the dark humor nor is it the cynically accurate deconstruction of military procurement and corruption. The lack of dynamism and depth in the characters is what hamstrings this production. There’s little dou...

When it comes to dark satires of the romantic comedy genre, few films are more vicious than Danny DeVito's 1989 offering, The War of the Roses. The film revels in its blackness in a way that few films during the last several decades have; even th...

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the musical had become one of the most popular motion picture genres. The list of past hits was impressive, including titles like Singin' in the Rain, South Pacific, The King and I, Oklahoma!, An American in Pari...

In his nearly 50 years of movie-making, Steven Spielberg has traveled along many different roads but West Side Story represents his first musical. A remake that draws on both of its classic inspirations – the 1961 Oscar-winning movie (directed by...

The filmmakers have decided to append the subtitle For Good onto this, the conclusion to their bifurcated adaptation of the insanely popular Broadway musical. An equally appropriate title might be Wicked: More of the Same, because that’s exactly...

Let me start out this review by asserting that those who consider themselves die-hard fans of the stage musical Wicked, upon which this movie is based, will almost certainly love what director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights) has deli...

At the risk of being called a curmudgeon, let me voice a dissenting opinion about Wonder, a “family drama” that veers too far into saccharine fantasy for its messages about tolerance and anti-bullying to sound a clear and genuine note. Oh,...