Movie Reviews

The Story: Story of a young woman's efforts to deal with her increasing alcoholism. The Lowdown: Smashed isn't entirely successful — sometimes sticking too closely to the movie alcoholic playbook — but sometimes it bears the unmistakable stamp of truth, especially in Mary Elizabeth Winstead's performance.

The Story: The Guardians of Childhood bring their collective powers together to defeat the evil machinations of Pitch Black, the bringer of nightmares. The Lowdown: Surprisingly funny and creative with a terrific look. If you're looking for a family film, this is it.

The Story: The story of a young man and a tiger adrift for 227 days in a lifeboat and their struggle to survive. The Lowdown: Ang Lee's film is a triumph of technical wonders and magnificent images, but how satisfying it is on thematic and dramatic levels is likely going to be a question of…

The Story: Bold new film version of the Tolstoy novel about the ill-fated love of a married woman falling for a dashing young man. The Lowdown: The most remarkable — certainly the most visually stunning — film of the year, this rethinking of Anna Karenina is a glorious spectacle of theater and film fused into…

In Brief: There is a strong possibility that William Girdler's The Manitou (1978) is the most preposterous horror movie of all time — and with one of the most peculiar casts ever assembled, starting with 53-year-old Tony Curtis as a swinging psychic of dubious authenticity. But really, how can anyone resist a movie that involves…

In Brief: Alfonso Cuarón's brilliant and occasionally shocking (to some) 2001 film that translates the American "road film" into Mexican terms of both a sexual and political nature in a story about two indolent young men and an older woman on a trip to a beach that may not even exist. Perceptive and moving and…

The Story: A ragtag group of teens must fight for their freedom after a surprise invasion by North Korea. The Lowdown: Run-of-the-mill action filmmaking and a healthy dose of xenophobic paranoia set inside a phony-feeling world full of one dimensional characters.

In Brief: Long considered the best of the Astaire-Rogers movies, Top Hat has been downgraded to second place in recent years, but it remains a pure delight. After all, you've got Fred and Ginger, a studio-created Venice, a script that's both witty and silly, great supporting players, stylish direction and five Irving Berlin songs. Movies…

In Brief: Cecil B. DeMille goes to the circus — with everything that implies. It features big (or at least biggish) stars in melodramatic nonsense set against the big top. There are also circus acts, of course — lots and lots of circus acts, sometimes with stars (and their stunt doubles) taking part. The naïve…

The Story: When the cellist in a famous string quartet is forced to retire for health reasons, long-simmering tensions threaten to tear the group apart. The Lowdown: High-minded and well acted by all concerned, but not entirely persuasive. Neither the story nor the direction are up to the cast.

The Story: President Abraham Lincoln attempts to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution while the Civil War rages and various political pitfalls loom in the background. The Lowdown: A far too dreary, stylistically drab and solemn biopic that’s buoyed by a handful of strong performances, mostly from Daniel Day-Lewis.

The Story: It's the big showdown between the Cullens and the Volturi in the final episode of The Twilight Saga — and if you don't know who they are, this probably isn't for you. The Lowdown: Less stylish, but more entertaining than Breaking Dawn — Part 1, this still isn't much of a movie —…

In Brief: It's murder at the opera — and it's all somehow tied to the escape of a lunatic (Boris Karloff) from an asylum. Fortunately, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) and his son Lee (Keye Luke) are on hand to see that the official police on the case don't get things wrong. One of the best…

The Story: James Bond comes to grips with whether his type of agent still has a place in the modern world while taking down a revenge-seeking cyber-terrorist. The Lowdown: Slick and good to look at, Skyfall does some things very well, but goes on too long and wants to be weightier than it is.

The Story: Fact-based story about a man in an iron lung and his efforts to have sexual relations. The Lowdown: The Sessions largely fulfills its promise as a frequently amusing, sometimes touching little movie of the uplifting variety, but never quite transcends this sense of well-intentioned TV drama.

In Brief: Roman Polanski's 1999 supernatural thriller The Ninth Gate is perhaps the closest the filmmaker has ever come to making a straightforward horror movie — even if it takes a good deal of the film's running time to get to the straightforward horror content. (Well, it's Polanski, after all, and he's not known as…

In Brief: This isn't just a screening of Night of the Living Dead (1968). This is the film (in a beautiful print, by the way) reconfigured (so far as the music is concerned) by local artists Silver Machine. Does the new musical track work? A good deal of the time, yes, it does. Does it…

In Brief: Roger Moore (taking a break from his 007 duties) plays a misogynistic, cat-loving Scot named Rufus Excalibur ffolkes: a man with a commando unit all his own who is called in to deal with terrorists (headed by Anthony Perkins, no less). The terrorists are threatening to blow up an oil rig in the…

In Brief: Perhaps Pedro Almodóvar's most viewer-friendly film, Volver is certainly the filmmaker's mellowest work. (All right, so it contains three murders, but, hey, they're understandable murders.) Clearly, Almodóvar was in a nostalgic frame of mind — possibly because the film marked the return of Carmen Maura to his roster of performers after 18 years…

In Brief: David O. Russell's offbeat "existential comedy" about unusual detectives (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) who claim to be able to help their clients solve the big questions that plague their lives — chiefly the questions beleaguring a poet/activist (Jason Schwartzman) and a disatisfied fireman (Mark Wahlberg). An effortlessly quirky film that's a good…

The Story: Wrongly diagnosed with radium poisoning, a young woman becomes the toast of New York because she's dying — only she isn't. The Lowdown: William Wellman's unflinchingly cynical screwball comedy about the cult of celebrity scales the heights of satire as few films ever have. Stars Carole Lombard (gorgeous in Technicolor) and Fredric March…