Movie Reviews

In Brief: When I reviewed Asghar Farhadi's Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winner The Salesman in March, a great deal of attention was being devoted to Farhadi's Oscars acceptance speech, in which he decried President Trump's so-called "Muslim ban." While I still support Farhadi's statements, I wish I had saved more print space for the movie itself rather than…

In Brief: Returning to France after the mixed blessing of helming a big-budget Hollywood film, Alien Resurrection, Jean-Pierre Jeunet disproves Thomas Wolfe’s adage that you can’t go home again. Not only did he go home, but once there he made his best film yet: the utterly captivating Amélie (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain), an instant classic…

In Brief: She Done Him Wrong is the stuff of legend. It’s the film where Mae West scandalized the world by singing “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone” and put her stamp on “Frankie and Johnny” (even if she doesn’t get to sing the whole thing). It’s the film where she brought Paramount contract player Cary…

The Story: A man's spirit becomes trapped in the home he shared with the woman he loves as he struggles to let go of the life he left behind. The Lowdown: A deceptively simple film that tackles heavy metaphysics from a singularly odd perspective — definitely not for everyone, but rewarding for those willing to take it on…

The Story: A small, family-operated bank must spend several years and millions of dollars to clear its name after it becomes the only financial institution indicted in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis. The Lowdown: Documentarian Steve James deftly tackles an important subject by presenting the complexities of a massive financial meltdown on a frustratingly human scale.

The Story: A British intelligence operative navigates a twisted web of danger and deceit in Berlin in the days leading up to the reunification of East and West Germany. The Lowdown: An overstylized pastiche of spy movie clichés that serves little purpose beyond creating opportunities for Charlize Theron to kill people in new and interesting ways, but a…

The Story: In '90s Manhattan, a family struggles with their personal lives, as well as their own relationships with one another. The Lowdown: Believably drawn characters are brought down by a lack of emotion and a '90s setting that serves little purpose beyond being generally distracting.

The Story: A Meh emoji must escape deletion by finding his way to the Cloud while being hunted by bots controlled by Smiler, the sadistic leader of Textopolis. The Lowdown: This is a Sony commercial.

In Brief: The Hidden Fortress (1958) may not be Akira Kurosawa's best film, but that's a very high bar. It's easily one of his most accessible and entertaining works, and was good enough that George Lucas lifted from it heavily when he was writing Star Wars. The film was one of the most financially successful (and critically derided) films…

In Brief: One of the best examples of Film Noir — some might argue the definitive expression of the genre — Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946) has a lot going for it. You've got a hard-boiled Raymond Chandler source novel, a screenplay cowritten by Leigh Brackett (The Empire Strikes Back) and William Faulkner, Bogie and Bacall bringing their…

In Brief: While it's not as well known or as historically significant as Birth of a Nation (1915), D.W, Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1919) is one of the director's most eloquent and aesthetically beautiful films. Griffith had already been stung by accusations of racism surrounding Birth — extremely well founded accusations at that — and moved to the diametrically opposed end of the…

The Story: The story of Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis and her husband, Everett. The Lowdown: A slow, serious portrait of an ugly marriage and an unlikely artist that lacks the proper heart to work.

The Story: Four best friends attend Essence Fest to relive their glory days and support each other as money problems, family drama and the realities of adulthood threaten to get in the way of their good time. The Lowdown: The raunchiest, wildest and most vibrant mainstream comedy we've gotten in a long time, this is…

The Story: A look at the lives of three young African-American men coming into adulthood in poor, rural North Carolina. The Lowdown: A worthy topic and very human study of struggle, race and class that falters due to the flaws built into its cinema verite style.

In Brief: So, I was trying to show Tim Burton's Ed Wood  to commemorate both the one-year anniversary of Ken Hanke's death and the recent passing of Martin Landau, since it was not only Ken's favorite Burton movie (and bear in mind, Ken wrote a book on the guy) but also Landau's only Oscar win — but anyone who read this…

The Story: A Pakistani comedian falls for an American grad student and predictably fouls things up, but when his love interest winds up in a medically induced coma, the choice between his family and the object of his affections becomes less clear cut than it first appeared. The Lowdown: An old-school rom-com for millennials that's nowhere near as…

The Story: Caesar's band of simian refugees struggle to peacefully coexist on the outskirts of a decimated human society, until the actions of an unhinged colonel and his renegade band of paramilitary operatives threaten to start an all-out war for the planet of the apes. The Lowdown: About as high-brow as a movie about talking monkeys can…

The Story: A look behind the scenes as master ballerina Wendy Whelan comes to terms with her aging body and the end of her career. The Lowdown: An occasionally human documentary that's best suited for those already fascinated by its topic.

The Story: An unpopular high school girl finds a magic box that will grant her seven wishes, but when dead bodies start piling up she figures out that the box has an agenda of its own. The Lowdown: Bland, aimless and derivative in the extreme, this is a movie you'll swear didn't exist a year…

In Brief: Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is one of the most remarkable films of the 21st century — something I was not prepared for when I first saw it. Even while recognizing del Toro’s talent in his previous films (sometimes more obvious than other times), there was little in his work to prepare…

In Brief: This latest cinematic attempt at the book is certainly a worthy addition to the world of Dickens on film. It does lack the symbolism (Magwitch as Christ figure) of Stuart Walker’s 1934 film, and the somewhat overblown gothic trappings of David Lean’s 1946 version, but it’s a solid take on the story with some…