Movie Reviews

In Brief: Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey (1936) is one of the essential “screwball” comedies. It may even be the essential one. From its glossy credits (probably the most striking title design of the decade) onward, it’s a slick, rich-looking production (despite its Depression-era setting) taking place in that movie-world version of New York…

The Story: A laudanum-addicted psychologist is tasked with proving that Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester Repeating Rifle Co., is insane so that the board members can wrest control of the corporation from her — but he gets more than he bargained for when he discovers that her labyrinthine mansion may be as haunted as she claims. The…

In Brief: Yasujiro Ozu may be best remembered as one of the Japanese cinema's pre-eminent social realists, but his early career wasn't always so serious. Tokyo Chorus (1931) shows a lighter side of Ozu, already establishing his visual tone and narrative tendencies despite having made his directorial debut only four years prior. Clearly influenced by Ozu's self-professed…

In Brief: This understated little comedy from writer/director Bill Forsyth (Gregory's Girl, Being Human) offers slice-of-life veracity and social conscience in a slightly saccharine satire, a perfect example of what Andrew Sarris might have termed a "lightly likable" film. Late-period Burt Lancaster sets the story of an oil company trying to buy a picturesque Scottish island in motion,…

In Brief: Yes, Fritz Lang’s first sound film, M (1931), has a few awkward moments, in which Lang hasn’t quite mastered the new medium, but this old warhorse of art cinema works more than it doesn’t and still registers as a compelling work by one of the undisputed masters of film. And calling it an…

The Story: Figure skater Tonya Harding ascends to the heights of her sport as an Olympic competitor before being publicly disgraced for her participation in the 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan. The Lowdown: A film that teeters on the brink of tonal dissonance and smug self-satisfaction before being redeemed by exceptional performances from its central cast.

The Story: An Army Captain must brave the vicissitudes of  merciless fate as he escorts a dying Cheyenne chief back from a military prison to his ancestral homeland. The Lowdown: Bleak, brutal bloody, this revisionist Western transposes the easy answers and unimpeachable heroes characteristic of the genre with characters defined by their flaws and shaped by their suffering in a…

The Story: A scrappy group of teens immune to a global pandemic must infiltrate a walled city to rescue their friend and overthrow the shady organization seeking to exploit their blood for a cure. The Lowdown: A cacophonous conclusion to a YA franchise that drastically overstays its welcome.

In Brief: François Truffaut's sixth and final film of his Antoine Doinel series that began with Truffaut's first film, The 400 Blows, in 1959 is mostly a pure delight and a fine conclusion to the series. The only problem with Love on the Run (1979), which catches up with the 30-something Antoine for the first time…

In Brief: F.W. Murnau's 1926 interpretation of the classic tale of a pious alchemist who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge, youth and the love of a beautiful young woman is possibly the most accurate recounting of the story ever filmed. Murnau draws heavily from Goethe's play but also from older…

The Story: A world-renowned dressmaker enters into a contentious May-December romance with a young waitress. The Lowdown: A far more compelling film than its superficially frivolous premise might imply, Daniel Day-Lewis' swan song ranks among P. T. Anderson's best work to date.

The Story: Two young men in an activist group fall in love at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The Lowdown: A thoughtful and sensitive meditation on enduring life, love and loss in defiance of unremitting despair.

The Story: A young boy has a summer fling with an older man in the Italian countryside. The Lowdown: A premise worthy of more than a cursory eyebrow raise, executed with an emphatically eroticized male gaze that serves little purpose beyond its own sensual gratification.

The Story: Documentarian Greg Barker is given unfettered access to President Obama's inner circle during the waning days of his administration. The Lowdown: A protracted exercise in preaching to the converted.

The Story: The declassified true story of the horse soldiers sent in to take out the Taliban leadership in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, that mission turning out to be even more complicated than it first appears. The Lowdown: An OK movie that could have been great with great actors (given weak…

The Story: A shady cop must take down a team of crackpot bank robbers before they take down the Federal Reserve. The Lowdown: A mind-numbingly long, dumb and noisy heist movie with nearly nothing to recommend about itself.

The Story: Country music star Liam Page returns home to the town and the woman he left behind, only to find it's going to take a bit of work to earn back the respect and trust of those he abandoned all those years ago... The Lowdown: ... but not too much work, since every character…

In Brief: Extremely late-period Kurosawa, from a time when the lauded auteur seemed to have either given up or lost the knack entirely. While Kurosawa often delved into the melancholic, especially in his later works, Rhapsody in August (1991) digresses into the downright maudlin. While the film offers some vaguely humanist sentiment about the bombing of Nagasaki,…

In Brief: Given the awards push behind The Shape of Water, I thought it might be an opportune time to revisit the film that made Guillermo del Toro the oddest bankable director working today, Pan's Labyrinth (2006). When my illustrious predecessor reviewed this one over a decade ago, he put it pretty bluntly: "This isn't just the best…

The Story: Paddington becomes embroiled in a mysterious treasure hunt when a deluded actor steals a book the young bear cub intended to purchase as a birthday gift for his beloved aunt. The Lowdown: Atypically palatable children's fair that shows an uncommon degree of respect for its audience as well as its source material.

The Story: A man on a commuter train gets entangled in a mysterious criminal plot that he must unravel. The Lowdown: A watchable, somewhat entertaining thriller with few thrills and nothing exciting about it.