As the holiday season builds to its peak, we movie watchers face a release pattern that seems a bit less robust than usual. However, there are plenty of perfectly interesting options out there. In addition to the major franchises sequels like Sherlock Holmes and Mission Impossible, there are a few titles running on the outside [...]

This article is filed under Best Movies, Movies, Satire, The Fourth Wall, Theatre, Thrillers.

During the day, Bobby works construction. And at night, he’s the driver/bodyguard for his girlfriend Jesse (Famke Janssen), a savvy go-go dancer whose bumping and grinding at bachelor parties sends Bobby into a rage.

This article is filed under 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, The Fourth Wall.

Early press for The Wicker Tree has not been overwhelmingly good, but one might say it has been encouragingly mixed. The original Wicker Man did not become known as “the Citizen Kane of horror films” overnight, or even during the horror boom of the 1970s. It vanished into relative obscurity for some time before its rediscovery, and look at that baby burn now!

This article is filed under Best Movies, Great Britain, Horror, Movies, Mystery, Religion, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.

If you’ve shamelessly dropped the dollars to hire a full cast of well-known stars, why not spend a little more to make them do something? Stanley Kramer’s 1963 comedy It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World succeeded not simply because it featured virtually every comedian working in Hollywood at the time, but because each one of them was working slapstick overtime. We need to get back to the days of actors who are entertaining because they actively entertain us, not simply because we are clever enough to recognize them.

This article is filed under Movies, Movies & TV.

Brother was directed by Aleksey Balabanov, who’s been called Russia’s David Lynch. The movie created a stir in that country, not unlike earlier controversies in the United States over movies like A Clockwork Orange or Natural Born Killers, which were said to glamorize violence.

This article is filed under 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Russia, The Fourth Wall.

Brandon isn’t a guy who enjoys the game nor does he seem to want to take advantage of women, but he needs his fix and accomplishes it with as little human connection as possible, preferring prostitutes to a willing partner whom he actually knows.

This article is filed under Movies, Movies & TV.

Censors save the NC-17 rating for extra special cases, and in practice it feels like much less artificial than, say, PG-13. Something about these films transcended the extremely liberal boundaries of the R rating, and in most cases the reasons are still apparent.

This article is filed under Art, Best Books, Humor, Movies, Sex, The Fourth Wall.

The Freshman has one thing that The Godfather: Part III does not—Marlon Brando. While Brando reprises his role as Don Vito Corleone (well, sort of) for laughs, it’s not a cheap trick. Instead, it’s a funny, recurring joke. And you, as a member of the audience, are in on the gag.

This article is filed under 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, The Fourth Wall.

A visually outstanding film (worth the price of 3D), Hugo is a love letter to imagination and invention, the thrill of books and movies, of discovering things for yourself and the freedom to do so. Cogs of various sizes occupy many scenes, and seeing Hugo hammer a shell into shape or figuring out how one piece of the automaton fits into another shows off the pleasure of actual creation.

This article is filed under Movies, Movies & TV.

“Vampires versus werewolves” is only one of the time-tested feuds that film and television have offered for our amusement. This week, Brett Harrison Davinger and I (Dan Fields) take a look at some other monstrous matchups, scary skirmishes, and curious critter clashes.

This article is filed under Best Movies, Horror, Movies, Mystery, Phobias, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Television, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.