Movie Reviews

The Story: An insecure woman starts living life to the fullest after a hit on the head makes her think she's the most beautiful woman in the world. The Lowdown: I feel pretty sure I've seen this movie before.

In Brief: Let's get this out of the way: I love Akira Kurosawa unequivocally. Having said that, I should point out that late-period Kurosawa is distinctly inferior — at least, in many instances — to his earlier masterpieces. A perfect case in point is Dodes’ka-den (1970), Kurosawa's first color film and one of the few times the…

In Brief: Fellini was the first filmmaker to truly spark my interest in the cinema as an art form, and La Strada (1954) is the first film to truly codify his auteurial voice, the most "Felliniesque" of the director's early work. Is this story of an abused waif (Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife) turning from her brutish circus strongman husband…

In Brief: G.W. Pabst may not be particularly well-known outside of film nerd circles, but there's no doubt that nearly every filmmaker of any significance that followed in his wake either consciously or unconsciously bears the indelible mark of his influence. And of all Pabst's films, Pandora's Box (1929) may well be the most notable. Both timely and…

The Story: Director William Friedkin presents the only documentary footage ever shot of a genuine exorcism. The Lowdown: Friedkin's unprecedented access to Vatican exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth provides unsettling food for thought in this riveting doc.

The Story: A couple in the midst of a divorce neglect their adolescent son, who has run away days before they notice he's missing. The Lowdown: A coldhearted political allegory masterfully executed by Russian writer/director Andrey Zvyagintsev.

The Story: In 1982, a former U.S. diplomat returns to Beirut to help the CIA track down a missing agent. The Lowdown: The rare historical political thriller not based on a true story, made all the better for it.

The Story: Giant animals with superpowers converge on Chicago, and only The Rock can stop them from destroying the city. The Lowdown: A movie so profoundly dumb that it feels less like it was written by a sizable team of writers than by particularly slow gorilla having his sign language transcribed.

The Story: After discovering her husband has been having an affair, a wealthy socialite moves in with her more down-to-earth older sister and tries to get her life back on track. The Lowdown: The most forgettable "musical" comedy since La La Land.

The Story: A game of truth or dare takes a dark turn when a group of college friends realizes the game has overtaken their lives and will eventually kill them all. The Lowdown: Lucky them.

In Brief: François Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973) is not only a great movie about movies, but it’s fascinating as an example of how international cinema truly is. By this I mean that while we think of foreign film as a separate world, Day for Night is clearly the kind of movie that could only have…

In Brief: Fie on those who have trashed this entertainingly overheated historical conceit! Yes, it’s completely indefensible as history. So what else is new? Anyone going to a movie like this expecting historical accuracy is in the same unseaworthy vessel as the student who watches James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and uses it to turn in a…

The Story: A young boy in the not-too-distant future goes on a perilous quest to rescue his dog, who is exiled to Trash Island by a corrupt government regime that prefers cats. The Lowdown: The stop-motion animated Kurosawa homage/political allegory you didn't know you needed in your life.

The Story: A small family struggles to survive the threat of mysterious creatures that stalk humans by sound. The Lowdown: A generally effective low-budget thriller that overplays an ambitious conceit, yet still works more often than it doesn't.

The Story: An elderly couple take the family RV on one last road trip from Massachusetts to the Hemingway house in Key West. The Lowdown: Aside from predictably masterful performances from Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren, you'll forget this one faster than Sutherland's character forgets his wife's name.

The Story: Three parents discover their teenage daughters plan to lose their virginity on prom night and decide to stop them. The Lowdown: While not as puritanical as its premise might sound, any sense of progressiveness is lost in various gross-out gags, and there's nothing truly novel about the whole thing.

The Story: The 1969 drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne off Chappaquiddick Island and the subsequent media frenzy surrounding why Sen. Edward Kennedy fled the scene of the accident. The Lowdown: Send Teddy off to do this, send Teddy off to do that, let Teddy take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere, send Teddy to…

In Brief: The late, great Ken Hanke and I had numerous lengthy and heated debates about the relative merits — or lack thereof, in his opinion — of cult horror parody Student Bodies (1981). This broad farce was the first to lampoon the inherent absurdity of the slasher subgenre when it was still in its infancy, decades before Scream (1996)…

In Brief: Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark accomplishes the not inconsiderable feat of being both fascinating and tedious at the same time. Conceptually, the film is brilliant. Technically, it’s a marvel. Dramatically, it’s about as much fun as an evening with an insurance salesman. That said, Russian Ark boasts enough striking imagery — some of it positively haunting…

In Brief: A diminished budget — and other things — conspire against this attempt at a big-screen Miss Marple movie to accompany successful Hercule Poirot films. It’s not actually bad, it’s just not all that hot. The magnificently catty duels of the divas — Liz Taylor and Kim Novak — are certainly fun, but the…

In Brief: Fresh from his stint in the German film industry, Alfred Hitchcock gave the British movie world a well-needed shot in the arm with The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring the immensely popular Ivor Novello. In so doing, he also gave the world its very first movie that feels like…