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When it comes to 20th century wars, World War I, the so-called “Great War” or “War to End All Wars,” is poorly represented in motion pictures. With the exception of All Quiet on the Western Front, stand-outs about the first conflict of...

Perhaps the most surprising thing about The Adjustment Bureau is that, irrespective of the misdirection of the trailers and T.V. spots, this is more of a romance than a science fiction thriller. That's not to say the Twilight Zone aspects of the mo...

Over the years, many films have taken a dark look at the supposedly perfect ideal of a white picket fence, a little house, and a nuclear family. For many, the suburban life is the American dream. For others, however, it can turn into a twisted ni...

It opens with images of a late-night poker game: cards, chips, sweaty palms, concerned faces, and a woman's fingernails. Then, as night turns to day, the camera moves into the streets of New York, and, with the first bit of dialogue, we know we'v...

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is one of those pleasant, inoffensive British movies that offers a passably entertaining two hours without providing material that could be construed as edgy or stimulating. The problem may be that it's a little too p...

With names like Spielberg, Hanks, and the Coen Brothers, it's hard not to be excited about a project like Bridge of Spies. Yet, although the workmanlike production is solidly engaging, it falls short of the loftiest expectations. It's worth s...

Brothers is arguably the most successful remake of a foreign film since Martin Scorsese reworked Infernal Affairs into The Departed and won the Oscar. By remaining rigorously faithful to Susanne Bier's 2004 Danish feature, Brodre, screenwriter Dav...

Consider Cinderella Man to be a Depression era Rocky. While that may at first seem like a glib way to describe Ron Howard's rags-to-riches boxing drama, a careful examination of the storyline reveals numerous similarities between this drama and Sy...

Watching The Debt, I was reminded of how entertaining a well-executed Cold War thriller can be. Although elements of this movie, based on the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov, have a kinship to Steven Spielberg's Munich, the overall thrust is more in line ...

History has labeled Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan as “a Madonna film” but a more accurate descriptor might be “a Rosanna Arquette film.” Indeed, at the time Seidelman was casting the film, Madonna was a footnote in the musi...