Matt Zoller Seitz

First Knight, a new effort from Ghost director Jerry Zucker, purports to tell the tale of King Arthur's ill-fated marriage to Lady Guinevere -- a young English noblewoman who fell madly in love with the aging king's most trusted knight, the virile, reckless Lancelot. The film makes hash of the...

On every level, Quiz Show is astonishing. It's more than just a satisfying epic melodrama about the television scandals that rocked the broadcast industry almost 40 years ago; it's the best American movie of 1994, and the most eloquent examination of the country's contradictory sense of ethics since The Godfather...

On paper, they probably seemed like wonderful ideas. How about a reworking of His Girl Friday, set at a big-city newspaper, but with an ensemble cast full of likable stars? Maybe they could crack a hot story about a couple of teenagers who are being railroaded for murder, huh? Or...

When Fatal Attraction came out five years ago, a lot of critics noted the cleverness of its central reversal: making Michael Douglas, the picture's straightlaced, family man hero, into a sort of masculine damsel in distress. Many of these same critics gleaned other intriguing subtexts from it: the war between...

A few weeks ago, when I dismissed The Bodyguard and The Distinguished Gentleman as limp vehicles for "dwarf stars," I received voice-mail messages from annoyed readers. They weren't Mark David Chapmanesque, If-my-man-Kevin's-in-it-then-it-must-be-mannah-from-Heaven-so-you-better-put-your-grubby-hands-behind-your-head-and-get-in-the-damn-Chevette-type people. They were just confused as to exactly what, in my book, constituted a worthwhile, quality "star vehicle."...