You could find worse ways to spend the next 6-7 hours than by watching the entire trilogy. (You could probably find much, much worse ways to spend the next 6-7 hours, actually. But why are you looking for really, really bad ways to spend the next 6-7 hours, anyway?)

“I’m not afraid of death. …but I am afraid of murder.”

Wise words from Jeffrey Overstreet: "If there's been anything lacking on the big screen in recent years, it's fun. And this may not amount to more than the sum of its genre-crazy parts, but it felt like seeing a glorious big-screen rendition of one of the stories I wrote when I was a kid. And for that, I'm grateful."

"While he is very gracious at first, Zaroff eventually forces Rainsford and two other shipwreck survivors, brother and sister Eve and Martin Towbridge, to participate in a sadistic game of cat and mouse in which they are the prey and he is the hunter."

Then I see something like Matchstick Men, which was squeezed between Black Hawk Down and Kingdom of Heaven (and is currently on Netflix Instant), and I am reminded of the things that make him great—things that can make his films work in spite of their size and scope.

I find myself enjoying the setting and individual sections of it quite a bit more than the overall package. Mostly, I'm looking at you, Jemaine Clement and "Shiny;" and you, Dwayne Johnson and nearly every moment of your screen time; and you, Lin-Manuel Miranda and your lyrical gymnastics in such charming, ear-wormy songs as "Opetaia Foa'i (We Know The Way);" and you, Crazy Alan Tudyk's crazy rooster; and you, entire first act. So, yeah, lots of things to enjoy.

A wonderful examination of the ever-shifting relationship between a father and son, it's based on "The Last Hippie" (the second story in renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks' "An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales" anthology), and it features the subtlest, finest J.K. Simmons' performance I've ever seen. 

he performances are superb and the close-ups work; spectacularly so. But if they didn’t, there’d be nowhere for Washington or Schreiber (or Demme) to hide. It’s a huge risk, really, but the film is far better because Demme was willing to take it.

Then, come back and explain to me how it is that the ending does not fatally undermine the film's most fundamental message. Because I really, really want to love this one, and I really, really can't. I just don't understand the sudden change of direction it takes during those last few seconds.

 I'm suggesting a documentary series about the making of (and impact of) his documentaries, as well as the impact of the works of four other famous Hollywood directors: Frank Capra, George Stevens, John Ford, and William Wyler. It's called "Five Came Back," and it's currently streaming on Netflix.