Movie Reviews

In Brief: Brightly Technicolored musical comedy with a workable — and charmingly — plot involving mistaken identities, That Night in Rio scores its biggest points in the teaming of Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche as constantly bickering nightclub entertainers in Rio. Alice Faye (who always seems too smart for these pictures) and a second Don…

The Story: Two teenage girls struggle with growing up in '60s London with the specter of nuclear war hanging in the background. The Lowdown: An often visually striking, yet quiet film with a superb cast that ultimately feels a bit too slight.

The Story: A call girl is sent to spend the evening with an elderly professor and a strange kinship begins. The Lowdown: A slight, slow-moving, fragile little movie that will either haunt you with its vagueness, or frustrate you beyond endurance. I do think it's worth a look, but it's definitely for specialized tastes.

The Story: Witless horror movie spoof. The Lowdown: If you want to waste 80 minutes of your life, here's your chance.

The Story: The tale of Jackie Robinson and the hardships he faced breaking baseball’s color barrier. The Lowdown: A basic biopic that’s too straightforward and heavy-handed, but perfectly solid if you’re looking for nothing more than an uplifting sports-crowd-pleaser.

In Brief: Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, has become a classic of modern American literature, and Robert Mulligan's film has become something of a classic itself — though perhaps one more of association than on its own merits, notable as they are in capturing the book. Gregory Peck has rarely been as good…

In Brief: William Powell stars as a lawyer who rises from the slums in this 1932 pre-code comedy-drama from director William Dieterle, Lawyer Man. Joan Blondell is onboard as his lovestruck secretary, who goes up — and down — with him. Along the way, he mixes with gangsters, politicians (sometimes the two are interchangeable) and…

In Brief: Marco Bellocchio's Fists in the Pocket — an intimate look at the inner workings of a dysfunctional, decadent middle-class family — is something of an oddity. It's definitely not Italian neo-realism. It kind of feels like an offshoot of the French New Wave, but it's that by way of something in the nature…

In Brief: Local filmmaker Joe Chang follows up his 2007 film Neutral with Present, a small, innately human character study. With a very simple story revolving around notions of how time changes things — from physical places to familial relationships — as seen through the eyes of an awkward performance artist, his sister and her…

The Story: A group of 20-somethings find an aged book of occultism in the incredibly spacious basement of a cabin. One of them foolishly reads from it. Nastiness ensues. The Lowdown: Slick, gory, reasonably efficient remake of the 1981 Sam Raimi cult favorite. It's OK, but apart from a pretty terrific ending, it's nothing you…

In Brief: Often billed as "the most bizarre movie ever," there's no doubt that The Brainiac stands pretty tall in the realm of the special insanity that defines the Mexican horror films of the 1950s and '60s. Whether it's the most bizarre is open to question. After all, it has no luchadores (which is a…

The Story: Fast-paced combination heist movie and psychological thriller about the theft of a painting, and its incredibly convoluted aftermath where what you think you know is almost always wrong. The Lowdown: Cheekily amoral, unbelievably complex, dark, humored thriller from Danny Boyle that's reminiscent of his earlier work. Deep? Probably not, but as an act…

The Story: Three stories — involving a dirt-bike-riding bank robber, a small-town cop and their respective sons — intersect. The Lowdown: An often flawed, overlong drama that remains worthy of attention because of its humanely drawn characters and sheer ambition.

The Story: The members of G.I. Joe team are attacked and nearly destroyed as the evil cabal that is Cobra attempts to bring the world to its knees. The Lowdown: A cheesy, charmless blow-em-up, heavy in dumb, macho action-movie clichés that's short on tact.

The Story: Moralizing cautionary drama about the wages of sin and leaving your husband for a slick millionaire sociopath. The Lowdown: Quite possibly, it's the most appalling movie Tyler Perry has churned out in ages. What more needs be said?

The Story: Sci-Fi silliness about aliens taking over earthlings' bodies — with timeout for teen passions. The Lowdown: Unbelievably tedious, occasionally unintentionally funny, teencentric sci-fi soaper that moves at a pace that makes 125 minutes seem like it must be no more than three or four days.

The Story: Documentary on the West Memphis Three and the efforts to prove them innocent of the murders for which they were convicted in 1994. The Lowdown: If you know little about the case, this should be one suspenseful moviegoing experience. If you're familiar with the case, it ought to still prove a compelling watch…

In Brief: Jack Sholder's The Hidden (1987) is a strangely overlooked sci-fi horror action gem from a decade not exactly bursting with gems. Kyle MachLachlan (fresh from Blue Velvet and seemingly in training for his role in Twin Peaks) stars as an FBI agent who is obviously more than he pretends to be since he's…

In Brief: In 1957, Leo McCarey was a director out of vogue and out of favor, so he tried to restart his career by remaking his 1939 film Love Affair — rechristened An Affair to Remember. While it was a hit, it really didn't revive his career, but this story of a shipboard romance that…

In Brief: Danny Boyle's debut film is nearly 20 years old (hard to imagine), but feels as if it came out last week. It's the wicked -- and wickedly funny — tale of what happens when three terribly trendy Glaswegian flatmates discover their new tenant is dead and has left behind a suitcase full of…

In Brief: Though it's pretty indefensible as objectively good in any normal sense, It! The Terror from Beyond Space is a towering classic of 1950s sci-fi horror cheese. It's more fun, more memorable and certainly more influential than the handful of big-budget sci-fi movies of the era. After all, none of its pricier brethren can…