Movie Reviews

In Brief: Clarence Brown's 1926 John Gilbert vehicle, adapted from Hermann Sudermann's novel The Undying Past, is the film that made Gretta Garbo a star — and for that, we should all be eternally grateful. Beyond Garbo and her chemistry with Gilbert, there's not much to commend this two-tissue tale of star-crossed romance in pre-WWI Austria, but…

In Brief: Danny Boyle’s second feature, Trainspotting (1996), finds the burgeoning filmmaker on slightly more typical ground in terms of thematic content — or what we’ve come to think of as more typical — than was afforded by his debut work, Shallow Grave, even while expanding on his experiments with style. Though Trainspotting’s story of Scottish…

In Brief: Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie may not be the best remembered of his early works, but it certainly deserves more attention than it gets. Blackmail (1929) bears many of the visual and narrative flourishes that would come to define Hitchcock's auteurial signature in later years — from his morbid gallows humor and propensity for cinematic innovation to a…

The Story: A novice writer is tasked with contributing to a script that becomes a major part of the British government's propaganda efforts at the height of World War II, but unexpected romantic entanglements emerge in the process. The Lowdown: A thoroughly inoffensive — and occasionally alluring — story that sneaks in a powerful message of feminine empowerment.

The Story: Star Lord runs into his long-lost father while he and the Guardians are on the run from a group of gold-skinned aristocrats, but the family reunion doesn't go according to plan when the cosmic pater familias is revealed to have a hidden agenda. The Lowdown: A sequel to a highly original film that, while suitably…

The Story: Two warring brothers and their respective wives meet over an extravagant dinner to discuss a horrific incident involving their sons. The Lowdown: The Dinner is imbued by all of the pomposity and self-importance of fine dining with none of the taste or sustenance.

In Brief: As soon as there were James Bond movies, there was a response with more seriously intended spy films. The Quiller Memorandum (1966) is one such film, and though it's one of the more obscure ones, it is also one of the better ones. Oh, there are some problems, and Michael Anderson's direction is…

In Brief: Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent film about the trial and execution of Joan of Arc is often cited as “one of the best films ever made” — something that too often means you’re about to get cinematic cauliflower (it’s good for you, but you may not much like it). Yet Dreyer’s film remains among the…

In Brief: The third film in François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, Stolen Kisses (1968) is probably the best after the original, which none of the sequels topped or even equaled. It's lightweight (a curiously insubstantial affair considering the political and cultural turmoil surrounding its making) and somewhat rambling, but very appealing and still embracing something…

The Story: An entry-level employee in a giant tech company starts learning that their intentions might be less than innocent. The Lowdown: A silly drama with touches of satire that has little to say and says it in the most inept ways imaginable.

The Story: The life of jazz musician Lee Morgan and his wife, Helen, their marriage and the tragic end to the trumpeter's life. The Lowdown: An affecting documentary that doesn't really push the boundaries of the form but is worth watching for fans of Morgan's music.

The Story: An alcoholic writer returns to her hometown after her boyfriend kicks her out, only to find that her drunken shenanigans are having real-world consequences on the other side of the globe. The Lowdown: A darkly comic story with a serious message at its core that deftly juggles its tonal shifts and disparate genre tropes while…

The Lowdown: An isolated teenager with a tragic past and a vampire obsession begins acting on his murderous fantasies, until an unexpected romantic connection challenges his worldview. The Lowdown: A complex psychological portrait of trauma and violence that will be particularly appealing to devotees of vampire cinema.

The Story: A man flies to Spain to spend time with his best friend, who's dying of cancer. The Lowdown: A quiet, gentle and human film about death and friendship that manages to avoid melodrama and cheesiness.

The Story: Two mermaids come ashore in Poland looking for men to love and/or eat, only to wind up fronting a family band in an underground strip club. The Lowdown: A staggeringly strange blend of horror movie and musical that falls disappointingly short of delivering on the feminist potential of its premise.

The Story: After a gun deal goes bad, a disparate group of quirky criminals find themselves trapped in a warehouse, pitted against one another. The Lowdown: A curious concept with some entertaining characters and smart moments, but these get dragged down when the film's muddled action scenes take hold.

In Brief: Robert Wiene never quite outgrew the shadow of his German Expressionist masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), but in the case of 1924's The Hands of Orlac, he did manage to come close to recapturing the magic of his earlier film. Reteaming with Caligari star Conrad Veidt, Wiene adapted a celebrated French novel about a concert pianist…

In Brief: World Cinema is revisiting this frequently overlooked Ingmar Bergman film. The U.S. title, The Passion of Anna, or The Passion (1969) is misleading, since it’s difficult to conclude that the film is really about Anna’s (Liv Ullmann) passion. Perhaps the American distributor simply thought it sounded sexier. In any case, the film is…

In Brief: Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov (I Am Cuba), The Cranes Are Flying (1957) is the only Russian film ever to win the coveted Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival — and not without good reason. This postwar melodrama eschews the traditional rigidity of Russian formalist montage techniques in favor of a more free-flowing camera, which perfectly…