Movie Reviews

In Brief: Empire of the Sun (1987) is Steven Spielberg still in his serious mode from The Color Purple (1985), and as serious Spielberg goes, you could do worse. It has nearly all of his strengths and weaknesses on full display. This story of the British imprisoned by the Japanese upon the fall of Shanghai…

The Story: A military contractor returns to his old stomping ground of Hawaii to resurrect his career but becomes entangled with both an old girlfriend and a uptight Air Force pilot. The Lowdown: An incredibly uneven, often messy film with flashes of inspiration that almost make the whole thing coalesce. Almost.

The Story: Two parts in the life of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson — separated by 20 years and used to illuminate each aspect. The Lowdown: Brilliantly conceived and almost as brilliantly realized, this is one of those rare musical biopics that truly gets to the essence of its subject — and in a creative…

In Brief: Perhaps the most famous star of the French New Wave, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and almost certainly the least remembered director of that same Wave, Philippe de Broca, team up — along with Catherine Deneuve's tragically short-lived sister, Françoise Dorléac — for this wild and wooly adventure romp. Promoted as a spy spoof, though it…

The Story: Documentary on the men who helped shape The Who, and of the band itself. The Lowdown: A marvelously detailed — if ultimately messy and overstuffed — look into the history of The Who and the men who helped make it possible. Candid, perceptive and of interest even to viewers who aren't fans.

The Story: A documentary on the session musicians who helped shape American pop and rock music in the 1960s and ’70s. The Lowdown: It doesn't reinvent the documentary — nor does it try to — but this look into a largely unknown aspect of pop music is a treat as it celebrates the faceless musicians…

In Brief: I first saw Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings (1939) at two o'clock in the morning on the second day of a marathon festival of films from Columbia Pictures in a packed theater at the University of South Florida about 40 years ago. It had never to my knowledge popped up on any…

The Story: Documentary on the life and work of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. The Lowdown: Glorious to look at — at least when it sticks to black and white — and keenly perceptive, this isn't your standard documentary for most of its length.

In Brief: The closing film for this year's Asheville Jewish Film Festival, Dough, is an unlikely delight. On paper — and to a certain degree, in practice — this sounds like a movie that packs every culture-clash and generation-gap cliche imaginable into one small space. Jonathan Pryce plays Nat, an elderly Jewish baker who refuses…

In Brief: Roman Polanski's 1976 psychological horror film about a Polish immigrant (Polanski) losing his own personality to that of the woman who previously lived in his apartment (and who committed suicide by throwing herself out of the window) may well be the director's best film. It is certainly his creepiest — and made all…

In Brief: If anyone ever asks why Federico Fellini is one of the greats of filmmaking, all that should be necessary is to direct them to his 1973 film, Amarcord. (If that fails, I suppose you might try 8 1/2 (1963), and if that fails, give up trying to reason with them.) Amarcord and 8 1/2 strike me as the most…

The Story: An upbeat teenager and a disgruntled older man become involved in the world of Tomorrowland. The Lowdown: Yes, there are some bright spots in it, but the story is poorly constructed, the payoff is too slight, the thematic implications are between confused and alarming — and the final result little more than an…

In Brief: Clocking in at a tight 81 minutes, John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock (1954) is everything you don't expect from a John Sturges movie. It's taut, tense, and it doesn't dawdle. The film is an expression of the increasingly leftist slant that MGM had taken after Dore Schary had managed to oust…

The Story: An angry spirit kidnaps a young girl after her family moves into a house built upon an old cemetery. The Lowdown: Obviously superfluous, but dull and lacking in scares on top of it all.

In Brief: My entire familiarity with Patrice Chéreau prior to seeing Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998) rested on seeing the video presentation of his famous (or infamous, depending on whom you ask) 1976 staging of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle at Bayreuth. In terms of his talents as a filmmaker this told me nothing, but…

The Story: A strong-willed woman in rural Victorian England deals with society, changing fortunes and the attentions of three very different men. The Lowdown: Splendid as drama and strong on character — the four leads, Mulligan, Schoenaerts, Sheen and Sturridge, are exceptional — this is one of the year's best films and easily one of…

The Story: A fighter pilot turned drone controller finds himself increasingly questioning the morality of his job. The Lowdown: Strong performances, a trenchant message and brilliant uses of imagery help to overcome a screenplay that leans toward preachiness.

The Story: Max Rockatansky helps transport some refugee concubines across the desert to a supposedly better land. The Lowdown: While it isn't likely to change your idea of cinema (at least I hope not), isn't worth the hype and has its share of problems, this is one wild — even hallucinatory — ride that's worth…

The Story: After an embarrassing performance nearly dooms their a capella group, the women of the Barden Bellas try to win an international competition to restore their good name. The Lowdown: The sequel to an exhaustingly dull, overlong, predictable and generally unfunny movie somehow one-ups its predecessor in all of those categories.

In Brief: If you deliberately took every soap-opera trope you could think of, packaged them in the glossiest movie the studio system could manage, threw in doses of culture for Hollywood's notion of intellectuals, filled it with top-notch movie stars and then served the whole with a swooping Max Steiner score (largely built around the…

In Brief: Viewers who attend the showing of Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai on May 20 will quickly understand it's being followed  with Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery, since the two movies are connected. Otherwise, Manhattan Murder Mystery is probably best known as the film that reunited Allen with Diane Keaton, though that wasn't the original idea. That only came about after his…