Last night, many parents were up late as their children were out past midnight. The youth were not out carousing, however. Unless you count dressing up as Harry Potter and seeing the midnight premier of the new film as a bacchanal … WHICH IT IS. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is truly [...]

Director Paul Haggis takes a break from preaching about race and the Iraq War to bring audiences a prison escape thriller with a strong performance by Russell Crowe. Crowe’s wife, played by Elizabeth Banks, is sentenced to prison for a gruesome murder she apparently did not commit. Relentless devotion transforms Crowe from a subdued, gentle [...]

Director Tony Scott’s still got it! “Unstoppable” is opening to critical acclaim, with much of the praise given to the incredible tension and pacing of film, which is as loud and untiring as the train at the center of the story. It’s certainly far from an intellectual exercise, but who could really expect a cerebral [...]

As if this film’s cluster of stars – Rachel McAdams, Diane Keaton, Harrison Ford, and Jeff Goldblum – isn’t promising enough, “The Devil Wears Prada” scribe Aline Brosh McKenna wrote the script and Roger Michell (“Notting Hill”) directed. The main problem is, as talented as McKenna is, it’s difficult to transform a paper-thin romantic comedy [...]

In many ways, this documentary is an anti – “An Inconvenient Truth,” Davis Guggenheim’s and Al Gore’s emphatic appeal for immediate environmental reform. Four years after Gore’s film, Ondi Timoner’s “Cool It” gives the charismatic Swedish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg a forum for blasting the “doomster” claims of those such Gore. Despite making some truly interesting [...]

Filmmaker Alex Gibney releases his documentary at a perfect time, right on the heels of the release of “Inside Job,” Charles Ferguson’s excellent analysis of the root causes of and leftover systemic ills from the 2008 financial crisis. “Client 9″ illustrates the aftermath for one particular victim of the financial industry’s collective malignancy and capacity [...]

There are few reasons “Due Date” shouldn’t succeed. The comedy has so much going for it: one of Hollywood’s most recognizable leading men, the hottest comedy star of the past few years, and the director behind the comedic masterwork, “The Hangover.” Even with all these pieces in place, however, the film feels like a rest [...]

This film is the third installment of Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millenium trilogy. While critics seem to agree that it doesn’t quite meet the lofty standard set by the first film of the series, it is nonetheless solid entertainment that ties up the necessary loose ends. Lisbeth Salander, Larsson’s damaged but intelligent heroine, is as defiant as [...]