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Movies that arrive in theaters with the tagline "based on a true story" often stray far from the historical basis underlying the narrative. As it's said, "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." Unfortunately, in presenting the tale of...

Forget The Bonfire of the Vanities. With Mission to Mars, director Brian De Palma has reached a new nadir. Easily the worst movie to date of 2000 (although the year is still young...), Mission to Mars beats out such worthy contenders as Supernova...

If the goal with Moana is to make money, Disney is probably in a safe space. Almost all of the live-action adaptations of animated films have been financially successful to one degree or another, with only the reviled Snow White failing to break e...

Oh, the humanity! If the pandemic precludes one person from seeing Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall, then it has accomplished something positive.For two hours, I sat in a movie theater in a state of utter stupefaction. How, I wondered, did this movie ...

The most inventive moment in My Favorite Martian comes during the opening sequence. A robot Mars probe is shown slowly picking its way across the barren surface of the Red Planet. When its power supply finally gives out and it grinds to a halt, t...

My Family, the portrait of a Mexican-American family living in East Los Angeles, boasts a series of distinguished thematic antecedents, including Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and Zhang Yimou's To Live. Here, as in the 1972 gangster saga, t...

Guilty pleasure (n): a film that a critic shamefacedly admits to liking even though the prevailing opinion, as put forth by serious members of the profession, is that the movie is a piece of crap. Christmas Vacation is considered by many film ...

With a cast featuring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Robin Williams, and Ricky Gervais, one has a right to expect something amusing from Night at the Museum. Oddly, not only is the movie unfunny, but it rarely tries for laughs. The only jokes in the pr...

The best thing that can be said about the second Night at the Museum (which bears the unnecessarily long full title of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian) is that it's harmless. And pointless. And dumb. This is a perfect example of a ...

Official Secrets disrobes a scandal that received scant coverage in the U.S. media when it occurred some 15 years ago. Although hampered somewhat by a fragmented and procedural structure, the film nevertheless makes a compelling argument that ...