Watched The Wailing on Netflix. For most of its two-and-a-half-hour running time, it’s a gorgeously photographed, atmospheric thriller....

Sometimes, a legacy is a cage. When we allow our failures, our fears, and our shortcomings to define us, they become links in a chain...

In his review of Rob Cohen’s Alex Cross, Roger Ebert wrote: This is the first film Tyler Perry has appeared in that isn’t his own...

Of the Sam Raimi-produced exorcism flick The Possession, I wrote: Characters. Characters matter. Especially in ‘scary’ movies—after all,...

“Because I am sick and tired of it all.” This is the most genuine line of dialogue in the entirety of Taken 2. After tearing apart half...

What defines film noir? The gestures and archetypes? Do the femmes fatales, creeping shadows, and hardboiled narration carry any true...

Monsters aren’t born; they are created by their environments. Our actions, even those motivated by the best of intentions (such as asking...

When I wrote my decidedly negative review of The Smurfs 2, I mentioned that I’d hoped it would be a “pleasant surprise.“ That was,...

When I made the difficult decision to spend money on a screening of The Smurfs 2 (by which I mean “It was the only thing playing when I...

In 2008, South Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon directed The Good, the Bad, the Weird, a stylish, postmodern “Kimchee Western” featuring...

In this rollicking, ultra-violent, color-soaked throwback to the golden age of gangster flicks, director Ruben Fleischer paints in very...

I’m a sucker for a good love story. “Good” being the key word. These days, movie theaters and TV stations are saturated with a glut of...

It’s a remarkable musical number, played out almost entirely in a single continuous shot: a tight closeup on Anne Hathaway’s tortured...

Jack Reacher is about as generic as action heroes get. He is every male fantasy made flesh–Bruce Lee, Dirty Harry, and James Bond rolled...

A meteor crashes smack-dab in the middle of a small rural community. An extra-terrestrial menace emerges to terrorize the people of...

Characters. Characters matter. Especially in “scary” movies–after all, how can I experience true fear if I don’t care about the people on...

He isn’t a man so much as a presence. As soon as he steps into a room, every other occupant seems to shrink. He rarely speaks, and...

Nothing better supports the argument that Hollywood has run out of ideas than the trailer for The Expendables 2. At least you can’t...

George Lucas may not have directed Red Tails himself, but he definitely left some fingerprints on it. Like Star Wars and the Indiana...

“Does The Hobbit really need to be divided into three films?” It’s a valid question. I’ll admit, I mulled it over more than once. The...