At first glance, Richard Linklater's romantic drama Before Midnight, appears to be about an older man and woman reaching their 40s together. But upon viewing, it's really an examination of a couple as they dissect and figure out their continually budding relationship. It's a beautiful collaboration between the filmmaker and two actors who poured their hearts into...

The are two families at odds in Ordet as a spiritual battle unravels between the Borgens and the Petersens.  This film is hard to watch at first; it lacks much action or excitement of any kind.  But you may find that it sticks with you in unexpected ways.  In a career spanning 45 years, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodore Dreyer gave us only 14 feature films.  But if...

When the cheesy action-filled Fast Five came out in theaters a couple of years ago, it completely changed the overall tone of the famous car-fueled franchise The Fast & the Furious. There was a slim chance that the sequel to the 5th movie would match the over-the-top action and tone that made us fall back in love with the franchise. Then Fast & Furious...

When The Hangover hit screens in 2009, it was a breath of fresh air after Judd Apatow and his consortium took over American comedies.  This was no feel-good comedy about people learning lessons, it was about guys doing dumb things they couldn't remember while in Vegas. It also launched Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper as movie stars. The second film,...

Compared to Alfred Hitchcock's better-known films, Shadow of a Doubt may not claim as much suspense or plot perfection, but as an overall execution of storytelling, it's as effective as it gets.  Hitchcock considered this his best American film, and it is easy to see why.  Shadow of a Doubt is an example of a masterful film-making,...

J.J. Abrams continues to ineffectively cloak his movies with lackluster secrets and an overabundance of lens flares, but he can still create fantastic action sequences that will keep your attention. Star Trek Into Darkness marks the second time we see the S.S. Enterprise and its crew together in action, but in some ways plays as if the lessons of...

The latest adaptation of The Great Gatsby retains most of the story generations have fallen in love with. Unfortunately, Baz Luhrmann's gaudy style and fast cuts are too distracting. There's still some magic from the F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel there, but the director can't decide between being over-the-top or toned down.

Loosely based on a real life murder spree in the 1950's, Terrence Malick's Badlands is an classic low-budget film that treats its subject matter with poetic detachment and off-beat humor.  On the surface, it can be viewed simply as a looses re-enactment of a real-life murderous couple.  We won't find any deep insights on life here, but...

If you're looking for the next Goodfellas with The Iceman, then this film will disappoint you. While you do get stellar performances out of the talent, the movie's timeline and character focus is so imbalanced that it's difficult to really pay attention to the film.

Leolo is an original and imaginative Canadian film, reminding of a time when watching movies carried the possibility of witnessing things previously un-encountered.  I am saddened to think that director Jean-Claude Lauzon was tragically taken from us after only 2 feature films in 1997.  We can only imagine what other aspects of life he would have blown open.

Returning after the event of The Avengers, Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark has a solo adventure in Iron Man 3, which proves to be the best of the franchise, and one of the best Marvel movies yet. If it works, it's partly because writer/director Shane Black understands the genre and good filmmaking, giving fun scenes and great stakes to this...

Together with the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, anime director Isao Takahata founded Studio Ghibli, the storied company that brought us more than half of the 15 highest grossing anime films ever made in Japan.  Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies is not among the highest grossing films, perhaps because it focuses on the aftermath of World War II Japan. Grave of...

Errors Of The Human Body is disguised as a scientific thriller. There's mice and labs and mad scientists in white robes. But in his feature-length debut, Eron Sheean barely explores the scientific. Michael Eklund plays the genius genetics researcher, Dr. Geoff Burton, who intends to find a cure for a rare disease, but instead gets...

In last night's Community the gang celebrated Christmas. They gathered at Jeff's apartment for a party, but things took a dark turn when Malcolm McDowell's Professor Cornwallis showed up. "Intro To Knots" gave us much to think about like, how far would the group go to get a passing grade?

G.W. Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl is a special treat.  There is a dark and twisted realism that one rarely sees in films prior to the advent of sound.,  it stands apart for its refined mastery of editing,  and it features a progressive undertone focusing on the plight of women in German society in the 1920's.  Pabst was on the cutting edge of filmmaking in 1929,...

Oblivion serves as a great opener for the summer film season, containing the kind of big budgeted sci-fi thrills that popcorn munching movie-goers would expect with a twisty plot that will keep many chatting about the picture long after it's over. While the plot has its flaws, the movie is still enjoyable to watch from beginning to end.

Brandon Cronenberg's debut feature, Antiviral, is clearly influenced by his father's David's work. Set in a dystopian future in which celebrity obsession has gotten completely out of hand, the film focuses on Caleb Landry Jones' Syd March, a young salesman who likes to get high off his own product. For the most part, Antiviral is a series of...

Scary Movie 5 isn't the worst thing ever, a critique that could be leveled at Meet the Spartans, but it's not a good movie by any stretch. It's a never-ending pastiche of attempts to try and make the audience laugh though toilet and physical humor. Scary Movie 5 is mostly...

I'm not so sure what my reaction to Mon Oncle might have been in 1958.  Had I lived during the postwar era, it may have been easier to imagine a world where society's obsession with modernization might be characterized as being entirely frivolous.  But today, although modern gadgetry does seem trivial at times, much of the comedy in Mon...

If Terrence Malick's reputation as a misfit genius has proceeded him since his return to cinema in the 1990's, it was partly because he never talked to press and his films often took years to come out. So that he followed The Tree of Life so quickly with To The Wonder -- on top of the latter being a much more minor key...