Latest Film Reviews

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24: Season 7 (2009)

In the end, the trashy but entertaining Season Seven will be best remembered for giving the show 'buzz' again.
Glory (1989)

In its broad strokes, Glory gets at the spirit of a group of previously unsung black heroes, and the filmmaking is of a high caliber.
Air Force One (1997)

[An] unabashedly jingoistic action extravaganza starring Harrison Ford as...'The Ass-Kicking President'...
Fargo (1996)

The Coen Brothers have always loved to go far, a tactic they don't forgo in Fargo.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

The sublime film music, now-iconic situations (like the climactic ghost town shootout), and sure visual style add up to a pitch-perfect genre pic that ongoingly influences generations of hip filmmakers.
Land of the Lost (2009)

It’s all mildly entertaining in an incredibly stupid, borderline coherent way...But in banishing formula, the film ends up, well, lost.
Taken (2009)

A blunt-force narrative...[though] Morel does good work with a string of brutish and short action scenes...
True Blood: The Complete First Season (2008)

True Blood is delightfully, deliriously sick and "wrong," but it's also a medium for Ball's patented brand of social satire.
True Romance (1993)

A hall of fame guy's movie...[with] a macho '90s ensemble eclipsed only by Glengarry Glen Ross...the monologues—oh, the monologues!
Falling Down (1993)

A heavy-handed potboiler, but as it raises the temperature, it does give cause to consider the line—so easily crossed—between social function and disasterous personal undoing.
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

The bones of the story are comfortingly familiar, the action is rollicking, and the metaphorical moustache-twirling of Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham is priceless.
Field of Dreams (1989)

Widely regarded as a modern populist classic, the film is both a fabulist fable and a celebratory baseball movie that acknowledges scandal within the sport but also the game's transcendent ability to rise above attempts to damage its integrity.
Inside Man (2006)

Lee is a bona fide cinematic genius, and his lively and inventive take on tired material proves that thriller corn needn't be mindless in its machinations.
Black Sheep (1996)

It's nice to see the two together, practicing their easy screen rapport—and no doubt more so given Farley's untimely passing—but Black Sheep is still a clunker.
Gran Torino (2008)

Ham-handed...makes Afterschool Specials look like Ibsen.
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

A diverting but typically silly Roger Moore entry in the Bond canon.
Valkyrie (2008)

[A] pleasing throwback to 1970s war-intrigue pictures.
Seabiscuit (2003)

Writer-director Ross's true-believer American salesmanship—inspired by Frank Capra and honed in Dave and Pleasantville--suits this story of American entrepreneurship, optimism, and resilience.
Children of Men (2006)

In Cuarón's highly-skilled hands, Children of Men continuously threatens to develop into something more fascinating than it is.
Yes Man (2008)

[The] writers...pay lip service to the dark side of 'yes,' but don’t do enough to explore what could have made the film more than a bouncy entertainment
Bride Wars (2009)

It's like the Whack-a-Mole of everything reasonable people hate about so-called 'chick flicks.'
Cinderella Man (2005)

Cinderella Man may not be subtle, but it's reminiscent of the well-crafted popular entertainments of Hollywood's Golden Age, blarney and all.
Frost/Nixon (2008)

Entertaining and provocative...a satisfying intellectual bout.
Grease (1978)

Problematic but ultimately irresistible adaptation of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's hit Broadway musical.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Pollack excels by establishing an interesting situation, sustaining it, and—in keeping with the paranoid-thriller genre—resolving it on a pleasingly ambiguous note.
Wayne's World 2 (1993)

Wayne's World 2 revels in silliness even more than the first movie, but it turns out that's a good thing as compensation for the otherwise repetitive feel.
Wayne's World (1992)

With Myers feeling his oats as a comedy star, Wayne's World turned out to be an irresistibly silly (and masterfully marketed) option for audiences.
Major League (1989)

A meat-and-potatoes '80s movie, that maybe doesn't 'taste great,' but at least is 'less filling.'
Tango & Cash (1989)

A bizarrely appealing movie, Tango & Cash is the essence of camp: it's bad and knows it's bad, so therefore, it's...good?
There's Something About Mary (1998)

Gauche, garish, and gross, a prime example of the coarsening of our culture and of the art of comedy in film. It's also pretty darn funny.
A Bug's Life (1998)

A Bug's Life [is] sure to endure as a superb children's entertainment.
Collateral Damage (2002)

Schwarzenegger's Brewer remarks, 'If I don't do it, it seems no one else will,' but that's a lousy excuse for...a multi-million dollar mistake like this one.
The Wedding Singer (1998)

The tone set by director Frank Coraci tends to the cartoonishly broad while making jokes at the expense of grotesques.
American History X (1998)

If didactic and overwrought at times, it's also powerful and persuasive.
The Sky Crawlers (2009)

The technically proficient The Sky Crawlers is nice to look at and listen to...but by relying on zombified blank-slate characters, Oshii makes a point at the expense of engagement, much less entertainment.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

With splashy digital effects and punchy stuntwork, the solid T3 slides along enjoyably, but doesn't have the impeccable story and visual design of the previous entry.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Pulls out the stops, setting the gold standard for expensive, explosive summer blockbusters.
Dexter: The Second Season (2006)

The screws tighten to an almost unbearable tension by season's end, when Dexter must answer the threats posed by Lundy, Doakes, and Lila without hurting anyone he loves—and preferably without losing his life or liberty.
Paycheck (2003)

Playful but inconsequential...the interpretation of Dick's intriguing concept is a street which mostly just dead-ends into noisy silliness.
Big (1988)

One of Hollywood's all-time most appealing magic realist fantasies.

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