Steven Rea has been an Inquirer reporter since 1982, writing about film and filmmakers, books, pop music and popular culture. He has been a movie critic since 1992.
He was born in London and raised in New York City, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School. He graduated from San Francisco State University in 1974 with a major in English and Creative Writing and attended the Writers Workshop graduate program at the University of Iowa.
His work has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Family Fun and other publications. He also writes fiction and poetry.
His column, "On Movies," appears Sundays in Arts & Entertainment, and his reviews normally run in the Weekend section on Fridays.
- Video: The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Inconsistent action and packed with cliches, this tale won't attract new believers.
There are aliens in The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but they are not from outer space.
Instead, they come from Russia: a band of demented medicos, descended on West Virginia to participate in some freaky Frankenstein shenanigans - and that's too bad.
- Video: Step Brothers
- Berg on "Hancock," and, yes, on "Dune"
Step Brothers begins with an epigram from our 43d president: "Families is where we find hope. - George W. Bush."
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Adam McKay used to lie to tourists for a living. A mere 19 years ago, as a Temple student and struggling stand-up comic, the Malvern-bred McKay was one of those carriage drivers offering out-of-towners a horse-drawn tour of Philly's historic district.
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Inflation is soaring, stocks are falling, jobs are disappearing, war is flaring, murders and robberies raging, ice melting, levees breaking - what's a worried, weary populace to do? Go to the movies and watch guys in capes and masks, with green and crimson skin and jutting jaws, bash up some bad guys?
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Beauty in Trouble
- With a title taken from a Robert Graves poem and a story that switches back and forth between worlds of wealth and comfort - and a lovely Tuscan villa - and the dreary lives of working folk in the grittier precincts of Prague, Beauty in Trouble offers a meditation on the legacies of communism and the lure of capitalism, but also on the human need for love, connection and family.
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A Bangladeshi in London, 16 years an arranged wife
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Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) was only 17 when she was yanked from her village in the verdant countryside of Bangladesh and shipped to London for an arranged marriage. And in Brick Lane, director Sarah Gavron's quietly observant and quite beautiful adaptation of the Monica Ali novel, Nazneen, now 33, a wife and mother, is still struggling to fit in, trying to find her place in the world.
- The Iraq war becomes a brutal and gritty mini-series in HBO's "Generation Kill," adapted from an embedded journalist's reports.There's no Big Picture evident in Generation Kill - HBO's brutally good Iraq war mini-series, debuting tonight at 9 - and that simple fact sets it apart from the Hollywood big pictures that have tried to get a handle on Operation Iraqi Freedom these last few years.
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'I wish I could say that I sold pot and I had a shrink like Ben Kingsley, but no, it wasn't like that," admits Jonathan Levine, the writer and director of The Wackness, a sharp, smart coming-of-age comedy about a just-graduated high school kid who sells pot, and whose therapist is played by the Oscar-winning Gandhi star.
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Boy to man and '90s nostalgia
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It's the summer of Forrest Gump and O.J.'s Bronco ride, of Biggie Smalls and big shiny bling. And in Jonathan Levine's The Wackness, 1994 in New York City is also the summer when forlorn Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), just graduated from high school and heading for his safety school in the fall, pushes an ice cream cart stocked with weed around town, dealing dope and tumbling into love with his psychiatrist's stepdaughter.
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A terrific mystery in any language
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Adapted from Harlan Coben's 2001 best-seller, Tell No One is a terrific mystery, equal parts haunting love story and nimble thriller.
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Hellboy fights for good, and screen time
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Hellboy II: The Golden Army begins with a bedtime story. It's Christmas Eve 1955, and little Red - a horned, tailed devil-child spawned by the Nazis, and now living in New Mexico with his bearded, benevolent professor surrogate dad - is getting the lowdown on a mythical kingdom and its invincible robotic fighting force.
- Inquirer film critic Steven Rea offers short takes, outtakes, information and interviews on films at http://go.philly.com/onmovies
MORE STORIES
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Journalism's wild one, loved and loathed
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Memories of father, surfacing painfully
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Despite all his faults, Hancock still a hero
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My Winnipeg
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Gun-filled mayhem misses the mark
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Nuts-and-bolts, high-tech love story
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Finding Amanda
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A surfer family's turbulent life
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Genghis Khan, the early years: Part 1 of a fierce, fun epic
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Myers' 'Love Guru' insults only the I.Q.
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Grumpy, green Hulk a gamer, but he's not incredible enough
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A grocery comedy that's stocked with gentle fun
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The Foot Fist Way
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Kicky cartoon comedy with pugilistic panda
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Stuck
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The Mother of Tears
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Norwegian, with a French accent
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A child's story told as cinematic spectacle
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Bad things happen to no good end
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This Iraq war film probes mayhem in Haditha
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Disconnected women cross paths in odd, beautiful film
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‘Indiana Jones’ cracks the bullwhip again
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Love and loyalties in the time of the Raj
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How alarming: New Yorker is driven to edge
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Haunted by a horrible incident, a writer struggles with present
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Mister Lonely
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Flight of the Red Balloon
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Fast flick
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Tumbling to an implausible end
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An unusual antiwar picture
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Was deal an act of love or an excuse for romance?
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McDreamy's go-to guy for this rom-com
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More Harold & Kumar high jinks
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Fateful tale undone in the telling
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The Year My Parents Went on Vacation
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'Shine a Light' reveals little but hard-rocking Stones
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Isaiah Zagar's mosaic of a life, shattering
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A shameless tearjerker, Mexican style
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Retro football comedy drops the ball
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‘Leatherheads’ sometimes drops the ball
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Tale of passion is both modern and old-fashioned
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'Flawless' loses a few points on clarity
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Here's the deal: '21' is escapist fun
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Life worsening in a disturbingly good film
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School bodyguard flick isn't super bad, but it's no 'Superbad'
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'Married Life' an affair not to remember
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Getting to know the fun-loving Browns
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Two devils in white come to call
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Interned by Hitler, and forging for him
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Young men trying to survive on Rio's Dead-End Hill
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Sniffing out a happy message
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Comedy hits the road, but the jokes fall flat
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Desperately seeking an abortion
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Coppola's magical-realist mess
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Fine '89 doc on the sad, beautiful Chet Baker returns
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Lebanese gals at the beauty shop with hairy problems
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Cloverfield
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Cassandra's Dream
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The Orphanage
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First Sunday
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Diva
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There Will Be Blood
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The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep
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Charlie Wilson's War
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P.S. I Love You