Movie Reviews

The Story: The Slender Man, summoned from an internet video, abducts and possesses a group of high school friends, forcing them to make a sacrifice that will send him back to the internet. The Lowdown: I actually have no idea what this movie was supposed to be about, but Eighth Grade, Skate Kitchen, and BlacKkKlansman…

In Brief: Judging by the reviews I’ve read for Caché, I am supposed to be blown away by its myriad profundities, its mastery of film, its ability to create tension and so on. I’m not. I’m also supposed to have been shocked — shocked — by a scene of brutal daring unlike anything ever encountered in…

In Brief: Josef von Sternberg belongs in the very top ranks of any list of the greatest filmmakers of all time — and nowhere is this more apparent than in his self-described “relentless excursion into style,” The Scarlet Empress. Bearing the improbable credit that the film is “based on a diary of Catherine II” that was…

The Story: In her last days of eighth grade, a quiet wallflower grapples with anxiety and insecurity. The Lowdown: An impressive debut from writer/director Bo Burnham that packs a surprisingly big heart and a wickedly sardonic wit into classic adolescent cringe-comedy format.

The Story: Japanese composer and activist Ryûichi Sakamoto lives through his music even as throat cancer threatens to terminate his career prematurely. The Lowdown: Documentarian Stephen Nomura Schible presents a compelling portrait of Sakamoto that favors evocative imagery at the expense of biographical detail.

The Story: An adult Christopher Robin tries to reconnect with his wife and young daughter — as well as his inner child — with the help of his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood. The Lowdown: Either an incredibly tepid and ill-considered case of nostalgia exploitation or a fascinating glimpse into Christopher Robin's psychotic break. Probably the…

The Story: Two ordinary friends find themselves entangled in a plot of dangerous, violent international espionage. The Lowdown: While offering some good lead performances and an interesting examination of female friendship, the movie as a whole is simply too mired in cliches to be memorable.

The Story: In the wake of a mysterious epidemic that killed most of the planet's children, the surviving teens must now hide their emerging superpowers before the government hunts them down. The Lowdown: Bare-bones X-Men facsimile combines all the worst elements of recent young adult fantasy franchises.

In Brief: I go back and forth between Spirited Away (2001) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) as to which is my favorite Hayao Miyazaki film. At the moment, I’m leaning toward Spirited Away — perhaps because I just saw it. The film’s story line is fairly complex, especially when you figure that it’s mostly there to hang the…

In Brief: My disdain for musicals is well-documented, and I would count Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals particularly high on the list of my most objectionable experiences in that arena. Still, even I can't deny that The King and I (1956) is a classic. Sure, the score is overblown, Ernest Lehman's script doesn't measure up to his work on…

The Story: Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt must recover stolen plutonium before a shadowy organization of religiously inclined terrorists use it to detonate a nuclear weapon for some reason or another. The Lowdown: Brazen spectacle for its own sake, mindless entertainment that overstays its welcome but never fully disappoints.

The Story: A black man in his last days of probation tries to stay out of trouble with the law, even as his white ne'er-do-well best friend and a racially motivated police shooting threaten to draw him back in. The Lowdown: An impressive —  if occasionally imperfect —  film that aptly explores hot-button social issues while struggling to balance…

The Story: Robin, tired of being viewed as nothing more than Batman's sidekick, enlists his fellow Teen Titans to help him prove his heroism in the hopes of landing a movie deal. The Lowdown: Alternately funny and exhausting, this musical superhero satire will appeal to bored children, die-hard fans of the titular DC comics or the shows they…

In Brief: The winning feature from this year's 24th annual Twin Rivers Media Fest is a real showstopper, a twisty little psychological horror-thriller that grabs the audience by the throat and never lets go. Spanish writer/director Ángel González's Compulsión is a tense, tightly wound story of a woman who suspects her live-in boyfriend of cheating but discovers he's…

In Brief: The Lion in Winter may not be a great movie, but as an historical romp that affords the chance of seeing two champion scene-stealers — Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn — go at each other, it's undeniably entertaining. This tale of three sons and their strong-willed mother attempting to force Henry II into…

The Story: Triplets separated at birth rediscover each other  — and unearth a shocking secret about the circumstances of their respective adoptions. The Lowdown: An absolutely astounding story that deserves a better documentary treatment than it receives.

The Story: An alcoholic finds sobriety and a new lease on life after a drunken car crash renders him paralyzed, leaving him to find the humor in his plight through cartooning. The Lowdown: An engaging story with strong performances, shortchanged by aesthetic and narrative missteps from writer/director Gus Van Sant.

The Story: A group of friends discovers that their friend's new laptop is linked to the dark web, while a shadowy group watches their every move. The Lowdown: A lean and mean thriller that works more often than not, but nonetheless falls victim to its own conceit.

The Story: Former CIA badass Robert MacCall comes out of retirement (again) to hunt down the baddies who killed his former boss. The Lowdown: Redundant, repetitive, and regressive sequel that pulls its punches in the story and character departments. Of course it's No. 1 at the box office this week.

The Story: A hybrid sequel/prequel that tells the story of what's happened to the characters of the original Mamma Mia! while filling in the gaps of that film's backstory, all with ABBA numbers. The Lowdown: A harmless and genteel musical that really relies on a love of ABBA that supersedes the film's lackluster plot and energy.

The Story: A wide-ranging I Ching hexagram of a documentary tracing the life story of Elvis Presley against the rise and fall of the 20th-century American Dream. The Lowdown: "Elvis was a hero to most..." — Public Enemy