I disliked the first X-Men. As any Screenwriting 101 course will teach you, a film must have a beginning, a middle and an end. X-Men had no middle. Just as you felt yourself settling into the universe and its characters, the climax roared into view and the film ended. Very unsatisfying.
So I don’t know why […]

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“In 39 years I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.” — Roger Ebert
I do not exaggerate when I say that Al […]

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The book sold like wildfire and became a bone-fide cultural phenomenon. The movie rights were snatched up with gleeful abandon. The raging controversy was the sort which studios would kill for. So it all begs the question—how did Sony Pictures screw up such a sure thing?

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Once deemed one of China’s most luminary artists, filmmaker Chen Kaige (the exquisite Farewell my Concubine and The Emperor and the Assassin) has had a series of critical and popular missteps in recent years. In what could be an attempt to shore up his reputation, Kaige has returned to the kind of filmmaking that […]

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