Angelina Jolie could turn out to be the #1 action star in the world. She’s that good in a
role written for Tom Cruise but rejected by him as being too similar to that of Ethan Hunt
in the “Mission Impossible” franchise. Read more

For 60 years, six-to-12 year-old children have enjoyed books by Beverly Cleary, so it’s
actually quite surprising that it’s taken this long to bring any of them to the big screen. Read more

Christopher Nolan’s concept is as irresistible as its execution. Read more>>

Just as James Cameron fashioned a far-distant world in “Avatar,” Christopher Nolan has created an even more intriguing inner world in this terrifying new sci-fi thriller. Read more

The strikingly original character Larsson brought to life is, alas, already getting predictable. Read more>>

In The Girl Who Played with Fire, Lisbeth is no longer the sometimes mesmerizing sidekick. Instead, she’s the very obvious, and less mesmerizing, center. Read more>>

Like Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy, you need to read/see “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” in order to understand this sequel. In the first movie, crusading Stockholm business journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) enlisted the help of a punk, pierced-and-tattooed computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), to solve a 40 year-old cold case. Read more

In The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko’s lovely comedy about family, routines and perspectives are shifting. Read more>>

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, John McTiernan, who created the original back in 1987, should feel quite complimented – because there’s not a shred of originality in this sci-fi sequel except, perhaps, the opening scene. It begins with an unconscious man, freefalling from a great height. He awakens mid-air, starts screaming and grabbing for the ripcord on a parachute he didn’t know he had. Now that’s an attention-grabber! Read more

Predators is, for the most part, a pedestrian, fanboyish rebooting of John McTiernan’s prototypically efficient action pic. Read more>>