January 31, 2003 | Addressing a class of would-be superspies at a CIA training facility, recruiter-instructor Walter Burke (Al Pacino) confirms what the novices already suspect: “You have just stepped through the…

May 28, 2004  |  Think of it as the movie-marketing version of bait and switch. The lobby posters and newspaper ads for Raising Helen show Kate sexy, in a reclining position that emphasizes…

January 14, 2005 | Call it Babe-licious, and you won't be far off the mark. Much like the beloved fable about the precocious pig who becomes a master shepherd, Racing…

December 27, 2002 | Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio is such a ghastly misfire, such a charmless and witless waste of film, you can easily understand why Miramax refused to advance-screen it for…

April 16, 2004 |  In the pantheon of Marvel Comics heroes, The Punisher ranks several rungs below such luminaries as The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man.…

December 25, 1997 | There is something at once ludicrous and exhilarating about a folly on the order of Kevin Costner's The Postman, an ungainly epic about the rebirth of hope, democracy…

August 18, 2002 | At the risk of sounding like a chronic contrarian, I must confess I had a fair-to-middling good time with The Adventures of Pluto Nash, a prodigious popcorn…

January 19, 2001 | According to the late, great Howard Hawks, a good movie can be defined by these essentials: "Three great scenes. No bad scenes." To that, I would…

July 9, 2003  | The unwieldy title suggests a flurry of last-minute second-guessing by nervous marketing executives. And the sprawling length – two hours and twenty minutes – very nearly qualifies…

December 17, 2004 | I fully realize that not everybody has the time (or inclination) to take a second or third look at an older movie immediately before viewing its…