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It’s gotten to the point now where the mere mention of M. Night Shyamalan elicits either a laugh or a groan. It wasn’t so long ago that he was producing some truly phenomenal films–I for one believe that The Sixth Sense is a genuine masterpiece, even (or especially) when you look past its [...]

The CGI people in A Christmas Carol, director Robert Zemeckis’ latest performance-capture piece, certainly look more realistic than the creepy-faced things that populated The Polar Express. But they’re still just a little off, enough to make this otherwise entertaining version of the beloved Charles Dickens tale feel as cold-hearted as Ebenezer Scrooge himself.

This year, I’ll dispense with my annual paragraph-long effusion of general hyperbolic delight with all things Pixar. Phew–that certainly frees up some space. Toy Story 3 is indeed another timeless treasure from the folks in Emeryville, a charming, funny and quite poignant conclusion to one of the better trilogies in film history. Set [...]

How to Train Your Dragon is not only the best animated film since last year’s excellent Up, it’s one of this year’s best films period. It’ll make you laugh, for sure, but, you’ll also cry, cheer and thrill to the adventures of a Viking boy and his dragon.

Watching The Karate Kid reminded me again about the influence that “hype” can have on our viewing experience. The critics belittled the artistic merit of this remake, and I expected it to be bad. So I was really surprised, pleasantly surprised, at how much I enjoyed it. Yes, it was a little [...]

I hated this lazy family flick with, well, a vengeance. It’s awful. Basically an hour and a half of star Brendan Fraser being humiliated by a bunch of animals. You might be able to tolerate it if you’re under 9, but adults should try not to look directly at the screen while it’s [...]

For this review of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I asked my grandkids, Jack, age 10 and Abbie, age 9, for their input. We all watched it twice and the kids watched the Deleted Scenes in the Special Features. We all really loved this movie. Jack and Abbie liked it because it [...]

In director Tim Burton’s marvelous version of Alice in Wonderland, 6-year-old and very sleep-deprived Alice has continuing strange dreams of a white rabbit (Michael Sheen), a giant rabbit hole, a mad tea party, and plants and animals that can talk. About 13 years later, a less than enthusiastic Alice (Mia [...]

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson mocked his massive self to decent effect in 2008’s The Game Plan, and does so again in The Tooth Fairy, a similarly innocuous but amusing piece of family fluff that nonetheless suffers whenever the big guy isn’t dressed in tights and sporting wings.

Calling this follow-up to the 2007 box-office hit a “squeakquel” is bad enough, but it also begs to be the answer to a question on Jeopardy, as in, “What 88-minute movie about a trio of talking rodents has more subplots than Spider-Man 3?”