December 19, 2002  |  Early in 25th Hour , Spike Lee's furiously melancholy drama about life and dread in post-9/11 New York City, there's a scene so brilliantly sustained, so…

March 9, 2001 | It's all too easy for a satirist to miss the mark -- and shoot himself in the foot -- while aiming at temptingly easy targets. Writer-director…

April 23, 2004 |  Yes, the child-trapped-in-adult-body gimmick is shamelessly recycled from Big and dozens of other movies. And, yes again, the predictable plot is a standard-issue morality play about…

October 26, 2001 | F. Murray Abraham goes way over the top with a performance that could be labeled "Honey Glazed" and sold by the pound. Not to be outdone,…

October 19, 2001 | Sherlock Holmes defeated him in two different films – A Study in Terror (1965) and Murder By Decree (1979) – and no less a luminary than H.G.…

August 6, 2003 |  Despite what some film critics might tell you – hell, despite what this film critic often tells you – there's nothing inherently wrong with remakes. Indeed,…

January 4, 1996 | Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was counseling medical students, not hip young filmmakers, when he noted, not entirely in jest, "There is the greatest practical benefit in making a…

August 12, 2005 | Brimming with rude humor and bad attitude, Four Brothers is a sensationally ’70s-style action flick, a down-and-dirty, rock-the-house revenge drama with the blunt-force impact of those mongrelly…

May 9, 1997 | Don't look now, but the first big blast of the summer movie season has already arrived. Luc Besson's The Fifth Element is a jaw-dropping, mind-blowing pop epic that…

June 10, 1986 |  With movies such as Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, writer-director John Hughes earned big bucks by pandering to teenage audiences with gross-out gags, pop culture…