Every time Forest Whitaker showed up on a talk show to hock his new film "The Last King of Scotland", I felt an unease in the pit of my stomach.  Every clip shown of the film throughout this...

"Music and Lyrics" is an unsurprising, perfectly agreeable romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore.  The film contains a fair amount of very smart ideas for a rom-com, not the least of...

On Sunday, February 25, the world will watch in baited breath to see if one of their cinematic favorites walks away with the industry's highest honor – the Oscar.  Every year presents its fair share...

Is there a more hotly-contested or perplexing director alive than Brian de Palma? Film fans, and certainly film critics, are just about equally divided on the merits of this prominent director, who...

The idea of pursuing a dream and falling prey to the pitfalls of fame -- that is, the themes that inhabit the 2-hour musical bombardment that is "Dreamgirls"-- is a dramatic concept that has been...

Satire is a tricky genre. The basic rule of effective storytelling -- at least the kind that audiences have responded to ever since stories have been told -- is to provide characters that one can...

Is it possible to judge Mel Gibson's film works now without burdening them with his recent public embarrassments? As open-minded as a viewer may try to be while sitting through his new directorial...

As I settled into my theatre seat to watch "Rocky Balboa", the sixth and final installment in an initially cherished and later maligned franchise, my hopes were high and I was ready to cheer. Hyped...

One of the most effective rags to riches stories to hit the screens in a long, long while, "The Pursuit of Happyness" tells the story of Chris Gardner, a man of promose and intelligence who struggles...

FIRST IMPRESSIONS The titles quickly fade up and extinguish, burning away like the tissued wrapping of a cigarette. The first image smashes like a thunderbolt upon the screen, a point of view shot...