‘A Simple Favor’ offers up a pair of smooth, subversive, suburban housewives that spin some sparkling dialogue off each other and their communal parental units. Mystery loves the company of Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in Paul Feig’s head-spinning, twisty-turvy tale of fremily intrigue. Equal parts secrets, lies, betrayal, murder, greed, playdates, and vlogging, this whimsically devilish version of ‘Gone Girl’, set in a waspy neighborhood not too far from Stepford, Connecticut, is immensely watchable.

The two actresses are sublime.…

A lot of 'The Predator' left me scratching my head. Besides some pointed questions about the characters and their motivations, here is the largest one - How did Shane Black, a gifted genre filmmaker (first as a writer of 'Lethal Weapon' and more recently as the director of 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' and 'The Nice Guys'), manage to make a Predator movie that’s not scary or exciting?

Black’s personal stamp is all over 'The Predator’s' bantering dialogue. Then, when the…

Boy meets girl. Boy introduces girl to death-obsessed literature, Swedish melodrama and the analyst's couch. Boy suffocates girl. Girl goes her own way. However you describe it, ‘Annie Hall’ remains one of the most charming, bittersweet, beautifully played, funny love stories ever committed to celluloid. 

The observations in building and sustaining a relationship ring remarkably true, be they on the awkwardness of small talk, the dread of meeting the family or the breakdown of intimacy and communication. The couple's shift…

The most obvious comparison for ‘Carlito’s Way’ is Brian De Palma's own ‘Scarface,’ in which Al Pacino gave an over-the-top performance as a Hispanic drug-dealer surrounded by mistrust. Like that film, ‘Carlito's Way’ casts Pacino as a Hispanic drug-dealer in a film that that is overblown, underwritten and with a wide array of unsympathetic characters.

Yet, there are some terrific moments, most notably a lengthy, very exciting and suspenseful chase through Grand Central Station toward the end of the film.…

With a $100 million-plus budget and a comic book legend comes great responsibility, and Sam Raimi didnt fumble. A perfect melding of director and subject, ‘Spiderman’ is a supremely entertaining take on the worldwide web-slinger that pulls off the nifty trick of satisfying the fanboy geeks, the Raimi freaks, and the movie thrill-seeker in one sublime swoop.

What’s great about ‘Spider-Man’ is its ability to hold onto seemingly obsolete values - characters you can root for, plotting that makes sense…