John Podhoretz
September 6, 2019 10:15 AM

Until I saw It Chapter 2, I would have given the prize for the Worst Scary Movie Ending to Sphere. In Sphere, released in 1998, Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson develop dangerous powers on an underwater spacecraft.

John Podhoretz
August 16, 2019 10:26 AM

Documentaries released in actual movie theaters (as opposed to public television or HBO or the streaming services) come in two kinds. First, there’s the hysterical, portentous world-is-coming-to-an-end-and-its-all-the-fault-of-the-Koch-brothers-aaaaah-help-call-a-cop kind. Then there’s the elegiac-rueful-showbiz-tribute documentary about a once-singular sensation.

John Podhoretz
August 9, 2019 9:30 AM

In the woefully underrated 1982 comedy Unfaithfully Yours, Dudley Moore plays a concert pianist who resists a booking in China. His manager, played by Albert Brooks, explains why he’s wrong: “What, shrugging off a whole continent? That’s 800 million people. You get 200 million people to see you by mistake just because they’re looking for a restaurant.”

John Podhoretz
August 2, 2019 9:40 AM

So there's this movie called Hobbs and Shaw, and it's sort of a Fast and Furious movie, only it isn't. I really wouldn't know, because I've only seen a couple of Fast and Furious movies and I remember absolutely nothing about them. And when I say absolutely nothing, I mean absolutely nothing.

John Podhoretz
July 26, 2019 9:30 AM

If there is any location in the collective American imagination that evokes an Edenic paradise, it would be Los Angeles in the 1960s. To think of it is to dream of it: The sound of Beach Boys harmonies filling the air, the weather always 72 and sunny, fresh-picked fruit coming down the 101, and money raining down on Californians new and old.

John Podhoretz
July 19, 2019 9:45 AM

Back in 1978, Superman's ad copy made a daring promise to the American moviegoer when it declared, "You will believe a man can fly." We did, and it was a smash. The ad copy for the new Disney remake of The Lion King might be "You will believe a lion can talk." You do, and the movie is going to make nearly $2 billion at the box office, trust me.

John Podhoretz
July 12, 2019 9:45 AM

Buddy movies are the ultimate in male wish fulfillment, a romantic comedy without romance, a vision of a perfect friendship forged in hardship, self-sacrifice, and mutual understanding.