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There was hope in 2005 that Woody Allen had re-discovered his groove with the release of Match Point. Since then, however, he has slipped back into the sinkhole of mediocrity that kept him from greatness throughout most of the '90s and '00s. Unfo...

A couple of old guys taking a walk on the Appalachian Trail - it doesn't sound like a winning motion picture formula and, as it turns out, it isn't. Like all road trip movies, the success (or lack thereof) of A Walk in the Woods relies heavil...

Tilda Swinton is a chameleon unafraid of any subject matter, no matter how hard-hitting or difficult. She has appeared in one of the most emotionally crushing films I have ever seen, Tim Roth's The War Zone, and her performance in We Need to Talk a...

Some might wonder why it has taken so long for comedic icons Woody Allen and Larry David to work together. Their brands of humor - relying more on wit than stupidity - are similar and both inhabit the same geographical and philosophical orbits. A...

While it's true that making good romantic comedies is still something of an art, producing average films of the genre has become a science. Take a little chemistry, a portion of physics, some basic biology, and mix them together according to a wel...

Winter's Bone offers a case study in the essential philosophical differences between independent motion picture thrillers and Hollywood/mainstream ones. The third feature from director Debra Granik and winner of two awards at the 2010 Sundance Fil...

Once upon a time in motion pictures, the historical epic was a popular genre – big, sprawling stories featuring larger-than-life characters splashed across a wide screen. The best of these often deviated wildly from the facts that formed their f...

There was a time when the opening of a Woody Allen movie was considered (at least in serious cinema circles) as an event. Over the years, however, the quality of Allen’s output has diminished. Now, it’s at the point where a good Woody Alle...

Note: This review contains spoilers. If you wish to have a virgin movie-going experience, return to the review after having seen the film. For obvious reasons, there aren't many movies about pedophiles or pedophilia. To date, the best-known of ...