It is not often that a modern film about teenagers avoids turning them into cliches. Even more rare is the film that doesn’t talk down to its audience.

It is refreshing to see a film such as Joel Soisson’s “My Best Worst Adventure,” a sweet coming-of-age story in which Jenny, a young woman, is sent to Thailand to stay with her grandmother after her mother

With a nod to the dreamlike opening to Paul Brickman’s 1983 classic “Risky Business,” writer/director Scott Boswell’s “A Wake,” opens (and ends) with an ambient melancholy led by a moody score from Tim Halo.

After the death of a teenager, his family struggles with the emotions of loss that come with his passing. Their family dynamic has been shattered, yet we find out

Matthew Berkowitz’s “The Madness Inside Me” takes the clarity of the need for revenge and twists it into a sexually-charged thriller of self-discovery and psychological manipulation. 

Madison (an extremely good Merrin Dungey) is almost overly dedicated to her job. A Forensic Psychologist, Madison sometimes goes too deep into the minds of the case studies she takes on. In his short opening scenes, her

Cinema needs more women filmmakers, more films created by people of color.

Horror cinema needs to be much more creative.

Director Nia DaCosta takes care of each of these issues with her strikingly excellent direct sequel to 1992’s “Candyman,” which stands (in this critic’s opinion) as the finest cinematic translation of Clive Barker’s work. The original film was based on Barker’s short

In 2012, Guy Pearce started in the sci-fi film “Lockout,” The actor played a man who was going to prison but is offered his freedom if he rescued POTUS’s daughter who had been kidnapped by inmates of a prison. (Sound familiar?)

Director John Carpenter thought so and successfully sued the screenwriter (filmmaker Luc Besson)

I’m a fan of a short film that can tell a complete story and foster a solid atmosphere in only so many screen minutes. Accordingly, if you happen to be in Los Angeles in time for the Dances With Film Festival, on september 1st do yourself a favor and check out “A Good Couple,” a dreamy psychological thriller from filmmaker Robert Gregson.

Gregson’s short stars Julie Ann Earls

Earlier this week I re-watched the original “Candyman” from 1992 in which a pair of enterprising though credulous graduate students (Virginia Madsen and Kasi Lemmons) seek to catalog and/or debunk Chicago urban legends. One legend in particular drew them in: the story of a late-nineteenth-century black portraitist whose affair with a wealthy white patron’s daughter resulted not only in her pregnancy but in her father’s hiring a mob