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Tag: Drama

House of D (2004)

Drama Rated PG-13

David Duchovny makes an awkward writing-directing debut with this drama about an artist (Duchovny) recalling his turbulent adolescence in 1970s Greenwich Village. Anton Yelchin is maddeningly idiosyncratic as the artist as a young man – he has the mannered, halting speech pattern of a nervous stand-up comic – while Duchovny’s wife Tea Leoni provides the

Last Holiday (2006)

Drama Rated PG-13

Rarely has a bad idea – in this case, remaking a 1950 tear-jerker with Queen Latifah in the Alec Guinness role – arrived on screen with its obvious badness so intact. Everything that sounds wrong about this project is. Latifah plays a mousy department-store salesclerk who embarks on a European vacation when she is diagnosed

Mostly Martha (2001)

Drama Rated PG

Another foreign import founded on the belief that a good meal can solve anything. As it follows an uptight German chef (Martina Gedeck) who runs her kitchen with the rigid precision of a military canteen, the movie doesn’t quite have the joyous effervescence of Like Water for Chocolate or Babette’s Feast. The pleasure, then, comes

Nicholas Nickleby (2002)

Drama Rated PG

A perfectly respectable, perfectly unexceptional movie version of the Charles Dickens novel, this is one of those studious adaptations tailor-made for high school English classes. Charlie Hunnam is a blond bore as the lead, a young country man who must fend for his mother and sister in 19th-century London. Only supporting performances by the likes

Rumor Has It (2005)

Drama Rated PG-13

This means to play off The Graduate, but any fondness you might have for that 1967 classic will only spoil the fun – not that there is much fun to be had. A misguided premise combined with a high ickiness factor – much of the comic drama comes from Jennifer Aniston’s character believing she may

Tuck Everlasting (2002)

Drama Rated PG

When this dull adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s children’s novel, about adolescent love and a fountain of youth, isn’t boring you to tears, it’s causing you to raise an eyebrow. As the two young lovers (Alexis Bledel and Jonathan Jackson, both of whom have the shiny, scrubbed faces of cherubs) frolic in waterfalls and dance under

Uncle Nino (2003)

Drama Rated PG

This is so cliched, cloying and forcibly sentimental, it crushes the very spirit it means to uplift. The title character (Pierrino Mascarino), described as an “elderly Italian peasant” in the press notes, visits his squabbling family in suburban Chicago and teaches them the meaning of life. Mainly he does this by saying things such as

In the Land of Women (2007)

Drama Rated PG-13

"Brody…cranks out soft-core porn scripts in Los Angeles and yearns to author a memoir of his high school years. I have a feeling the world has more use for the soft-core porn."

American Gangster (2007)

Drama Rated R

“What are the chances you would leave a movie starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe shrugging your shoulders?

Coach Carter (2005)

Drama Rated PG-13

NBA fans feeling gloomy about the me-first personalities plaguing the league can find some comfort in this fact-based sports drama about a high school basketball coach (Samuel L. Jackson) who made national headlines in 1999 for benching his winning team until they raised their grades. Worth seeing simply for the moment when Jackson launches into

Recent Reviews

Mother Mary (2026)

Drama Rated R

“A collage of religio-goth gestures…”

The Great Dictator (1940)

Comedy Rated G

“Charlie Chaplin was not messing around.”

Sophie’s Choice (1982)

Drama Rated R

“Streep has what can only be called a commanding fragility.”


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