Movie Reviews

The Story: When his no-account stepson is killed, a small-time crook has to come up with the money for the funeral. The Lowdown: A good cast elevates this uneven look into the lives of the inhabitants of a low-class neighborhood called God's Pocket. Grubby and darkly comic, it's a film that gets better as it…

The Story: The love story of two ancient lovers who happen to be vampires. The Lowdown: An unbelievably atmospheric and elegant film that is deeply suffused with both sadness and beauty. Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive belongs on your must-see list, even if you don't like horror movies.  

In Brief: Originally released in a cut version as Creepers, Dario Argento's Phenomena (1985) has the interesting distinction of being quite possibly the maestro's most spectacularly unhinged works. If you are at all familiar with Sgr. Argento's work, you'll realize what an accomplishment that is. Here we have 14-year-old Jennifer Connelly as a girl who…

The Story: A money-strapped man talks his best friend into becoming an expensive male prostitute — and positions himself as pimp. The Lowdown: Both very funny and surprisingly moving, Fading Gigolo scores bonus points for the inspired teaming of John Turturro and Woody Allen. It has at least one major problem, but that's easily overlooked…

The Story: It's all-out war between a young married couple with a baby and the noisy, wild frat boys who move in next door. The Lowdown: Supposedly riotous and theoretically shocking R-rated tomfoolery is just more of the same from the raunchy comedy style of filmmaking. Your mileage may vary, judging by the box office…

In Brief: This 1983 film version of The Pirates of Penzance certainly has its admirers — some of them quite adamant — but I confess I am not one of them. It's too broad, too stagey and too much like a TV special, but if you want to see Kevin Kline's undeniably energetic turn as…

In Brief: It wasn't that long ago that Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin — then known mostly as Potemkin — was in the top five of nearly all lists of the greatest films ever made. While the 1925 Soviet film seems to have been downgraded in recent years, it remains an essential of cinematic literacy, one of the…

The Story: Documentary about the local fight to get the old CTS manufacturing plant cleaned up. The issue is ongoing — two decades after the problem was reported to the Environmental Protection Agency. The Lowdown: Strong, sharply focused, straightforward activist documentary that allows its anger to be simply conveyed by amassing the facts and letting…

The Wedge Brewery starts their 2014 outdoor movie series — this year almost entirely devoted to the Coen Brothers — on Saturday, May 10 with the Coens'  immensely popular Raising Arizona starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter. Whatever else the film is or isn't, Raising Arizona boasts a frantic pace and nonstop cinematic invention from…

The Story: The travels of disparate pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, a famous spiritual path in Spain. The Lowdown: A gentle, well-meaning documentary that will appeal to those interested in the Camino but few others.

The Story: Documentary about finding the Higgs boson with the aid of Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The Lowdown: It is made by physicists and made for physicists — or at least pretty hard-core science enthusiasts. For that audience, it's fine, but the uninitiated may find it something of a slog.

Stanley Kubrick's still controversial masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange, is back where it belongs — well, for one show anyway — on the big screen. The newly restored, remastered digital cinema print should blow away all previous incarnations, revealing the film as close to what Kubrick intended as possible. It is a milestone of its time…

Yes, it has a ridiculous (and largely meaningless) title and was always referred to by Bette Davis as "idiotic" (well, her role kind of is), but Alfred E. Green's Parachute Jumper (1933) is really a lot of racy Pre-Code fun — with gags and references that would become impossible under regulations enforced one year later.…

That most playful of surrealists Luis Buñuel had one of his greatest successes with his 1967 essay in erotica Belle de Jour — in part, I suspect, because it is one of his least overtly surreal works (which may make it all the more surreal). But more, it was — and is — promoted for its…

The Story: A man sets out for revenge, only to become entangled in an even more treacherous mess. The Lowdown: A curious little movie on the difficulties of vengeance that has some good ideas, but eventually does little to set itself apart.

The Story: More Spider-Man action, more villains and a surprisingly effective human story in the middle. The Lowdown: As so-called event movies go, this latest Spider-Man opus is at best average, but the relationship between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy makes it above average — at least when it has the chance.

In Brief: Neil Jordan's much maligned — and much misunderstood — 1999 horror thriller may be considered over-the-top, but I've always found it more operatic than anything. It's an intense work of intense emotions that are played with that intensity — especially as concerns Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr. It is also incredibly stylish,…

The Story: A young mouse becomes the improbable friend of a very large bear. The Lowdown: A film of immense charm and pleasingly non-gooey sweetness that also carries a solid theme about prejudice and how it's a learned response. It is not, however, preachy and is largely played for clever comedy.

The Story: After 12 years in prison, safecracker Dom Hemingway is out — and in search of everything he feels is owed him. The Lowdown: Unrepentant in its vulgarity, unflinching in its occasional violence, endlessly creative in its use of words and images and blessed with a brilliant performance from Jude Law, Dom Hemingway is…

The Story: A woman finds out the man of her dreams is actually married, and she and the wife become reluctant friends. The Lowdown: An overlong, unfunny and eventually despicable shot at the raunchy, female-centric comedy.

In Brief: A curio and two hybrids in one movie, Michael Curtiz's Noah's Ark (1928) is a fascinating relic of the late silent/early sound era. Like DeMille's 1923 The Ten Commandments, it's only partly a Biblical epic. Most of its first half is a WWI story that serves as a lead-in — and a rather…