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Shaun of the Dead is a spoof, but at the same time, it's a semi-serious horror movie. It's also an homage to George Romero's Dead series (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead) and a societal commentary. Admittedly, with so ...

One of the great action movie staples is the story of a grim survivor bonding with and becoming the protector of a child. This adoptive parent/child relationship, if handled with a degree of finesse, can add a layer of depth to high-caliber set pi...

Schlock Holmes is too brutal. Call it instead The Adventure of the Da Vinci Code Knock-off or The Adventure of the Missing Ending. Either would be equally appropriate. This original story, which borrows heavily from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "can...

By any standards, Silk is a bad movie: pretentious, stillborn, devoid of emotion. It’s a perfect example of how awful direction and performances can ruin an adequate screenplay. Granted, what’s on paper isn’t perfect and it contains a number...

Skyfall can take its place alongside From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service as the best Bond can offer. With an Oscar winner at the helm and Oscar winners in two prominent roles, Skyfall overflows with talent but, as...

Sleuth, a 1972 "thinking person's thriller," is a rich, engaging motion picture with surprises lurking in the shadows behind every narrative corner. The film opens with a shot of Michael Caine making his way through a hedge labyrinth in search...

Slumdog Millionaire comes from director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who fashion what is at heart a romance into a mystery and a thriller with Dickensian undertones. It's tough not to think of David Copperfield when we see the "orph...

Smokin' Aces is Tarantino lite - a vague and unsuccessful attempt to bring together a bunch of offbeat, unrelated characters in a situation where a bloody resolution is inescapable. Like an absentminded chef, however, writer/director Joe Carnahan ...

Why would a successful director like Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liasons, The Grifters, Hero) go from the relative security of Hollywood to the near-obscurity of Ireland to make a little film like The Snapper? Frears himself supplied the answer by...

As his career develops, it may turn out that British maverick filmmaker Guy Ritchie has only the taste and talent to make one kind of film - but, if every salvo he fires is as snappy, funny, and energized as his initial two movies (Lock, Stock and ...