Defending Your Life

A patriotic-spirited account of the US hockey team’s victory over the Russians in 1980 is marred by the gloomy backdrop of Jimmy Carter’s “malaise”

A disappointing outing for one of the greatest directors working today

The iron rule in Hollywood is that if you’ve got a hit, you’ve got to have a sequel. But what happens when the hit depends, as last year’s Blair Witch Project did, on a necessarily temporary illusion of reality? Fool me once and I’ll give you a good review; fool me twice and I’m an…

Another cinematic exercise in drinking deep from the intoxicating stream of popular paranoia

Hollywood’s wars are still with the same enemy they have been fighting for 30 years — the Pentagon. But there are signs of growing pro-Americanism.

The hallmark of what is becoming the M. Night Shyamalan franchise is a movie starring Bruce Willis and a remarkable boy, set in Philadelphia with supernatural overtones and a surprise ending. The Sixth Sense (1999) may have sold more tickets on the strength of the mystery of its ending than any film since Psycho. So,…