Even by the generous criteria generally applied to summer films, last summer was a particularly disappointing season. Vacation movies target young audiences with young themes, and, as a result, they emerge half-baked from the minds of young, or wannabe young, filmmakers. Okay, I plead nolo contender

Forgive the ponderous title. As a veteran reviewer, I do recognize the limits of my role. Ordinarily, I would try to find a mildly entertaining way to remind readers that Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now received a warm if not enthusiastic welcome when it first appeared in 1979. I would conclu

A. I. Artificial Intelligence leaves no doubt that it wants its audiences to enter a realm of pure fantasy when it identifies one of the last remaining islands of civilization as New Jersey. As the voice-over narrator (Ben Kingsley) explains (pace George W.), global warming has melted the polar ice

Sell everything to buy the “pearl of great price,” the Gospel tells us (Mt. 13:46). Disney did exactly that, mortgaging the Mouse House for upwards of $140 million to produce this year’s summer blockbuster, Pearl Harbor. It bought a pearl of pure plastic.No, “Pearl Harbor&rdq

As you might have suspected, neurosis plagues columnists and reviewers. After a quarter century of these near-monthly essays on the state of civilization as mirrored in popular films, I still wonder each time I sit at the word processor if this is the column that will finally reveal, once and for al

Many years ago, decades in fact, I was the object of an extraordinary kindness. In the very act of accepting this favor, however, I reacted with a remark of stupefying insensitivity. My benefactor recoiled visibly. The damage once done could not be undone. To describe the exchange in more detail wou