Going to Pieces,” a new made-for-cable documentary (which airs this Halloween on Starz at 11:00 p.m.), charts the history of slasher films. The film starts off strong, but falls apart once the initial shock value of cinematic cut-and-slash overkill wears off. The film strings together the best scenes from new and classic examples of the […]

By Adrienne LaFrance,
Regardless of your political affiliation, you have to admit that it’s good to see Al Gore beardless and moving on with his life, six years after the 2000 presidential election. Gore is pursuing what he’s called his life’s calling; spreading the word about global warming and its threats to civilization.
Last night, I finally […]

“Superman Returns” fails to take off the ground in Warner Brother’s attempt to revive the legendary franchise. Although Brandon Routh believably portrays the Man of Steel, unmistakably similar in his bold facial features and baritone voice to the man (Christopher Reeve) who made the role famous, the predictable plot and too much one-dimensional acting by […]

Through DVDs, I recently revisited some vividly remembered TV episodes of “Walt Disney Presents” with the “Tomorrowland” theme.
animation, Mars and Beyoind, Martians, Tomorrowland, Walt Disney, Ward Kimball

The new movie, “The Lake House,” which is inspired by the South Korean sci-fi romance “Siworae,” reunites “Speed” co-stars Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in considerably more mellow and mature roles.
Film, keanu reeves, romance, sandra bullock, the lake house

A prickly woman’s survival depends on her ability to soften her edges in this riveting drama by Olivier Assayas, for which Maggie Cheung won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Assayas began his career by making incisive and unsentimental character studies. His technique became freer in his first collaboration with […]

As a film about a brief, cross-generational friendship, “Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont” (now playing at the Kendall Square Cinema) doesn’t have the pop-culture cachet of “Lost in Translation” or “Harold and Maude.” It’s content to nestle into an ambiguously etched contemporary London in which people quote Wordsworth and make a fuss about the old […]

A gorgeous documentary examines the 1990 heist of priceless art from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Film, Gardner Heist, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Picture an alternate 2006 in which the internet slave trade in America is an integral part of the economy, only white men have the right to vote, and culture is devoid of jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and countless other things. Head to Fenway and you’ll hear the national anthem, “Dixie,” played before watching your favorite […]

Full disclosure: my mother died of lung cancer, brought on by a decades-long addiction to the product satirized in the new film “Thank You for Smoking,” directed by Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman) from a novel by Christopher Buckley (son of William F. Buckley). So maybe I’m not the right person to be reviewing […]