Movie Reviews

In Brief: Classic World Cinema is revisiting one of the most visually engaging films of 2017, Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman's incomparably ambitious Loving Vincent. In my review from last October, I expounded further: "The very fact that a film like Loving Vincent exists is a noteworthy achievement in and of itself. Composed entirely of oil paintings in the…

In Brief: In 1986, in one of their rare attacks of culture, the amazing team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus opted to produce and release (through their Canon Films company) Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of Gisuseppe Verdi’s opera Otello, which, of course, is based on Shakespeare’s play. Well, you don’t get much more cultured than…

The Story: A documentary profile of Danny and Ron's Rescue, a nonprofit dog shelter housed in a couple's South Carolina home. The Lowdown: A touching — and at times, disturbing — look at the world of animal rescue as seen through the eyes of two men who have dedicated their lives (and retirement funds) to helping dogs in…

The Story: A priest and a young nun are sent by the Vatican to determine if a Romanian convent is still consecrated ground following the suicide of one of the sisters, only to uncover a much greater evil than a lack of mental health resources. The Lowdown: An odd mashup of Hammer-style high camp and modern jump scare…

The Story: Jennifer Garner goes full Death Wish after seeing her husband and child gunned down by gangsters. The Lowdown: A cool, violent, entertaining-as-hell 75-minute movie with an extra 30 minutes tacked onto the end of it.

The Story: A country doctor in the postwar English countryside encounters mysterious events at the crumbling manor home of a dwindling family of aristocrats. The Lowdown: A reasonably creepy and atmospheric piece of supernatural (or is it psychological?) suspense cinema that suffers in comparison to its director's previous films.

The Story: A woman in a small town decides to open a bookshop despite pushback from more powerful people in her community. The Lowdown: An incredibly drawn-out and confoundingly pointless drama that really only has a nice Bill Nighy performance going for it.

In Brief:  When first shown here (2004), I wrote: "The first thing you notice about Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi’s Turtles Can Fly is how much more technically accomplished it is than most films we see from this part of the world. The colors are bright and vivid, the images are sharp and detailed, the compositions…

In Brief: The so-called portmanteau film — a collection of stories in a single vessel — is by its very nature a tricky proposition. Even the best of them — Julien Duvivier’s Tales of Manhattan (1942), the multidirector Dead of Night (1945) — rises and falls on the quality of the individual episodes. Duvivier’s film, for…

The Story: A widower searches for his missing daughter by delving into her digital life to retrace her steps before she disappeared. The Lowdown: Yet another entry in the "takes place entirely on a computer screen" genre, somewhat slight in the character and story departments and hamstrung by its gimmick but more suspenseful and affective than one…

The Story: Historic drama recounting the 1960 Mossad operation to capture former SS officer Adolph Eichmann, who had been living under an assumed identity in Argentina. The Lowdown: A disappointing dramatization of a fascinating subject that benefits from the strong performances of Ben Kingsley and Oscar Isaac, but ultimately fails to settle on a cohesive narrative strategy.

The Story: After breaking up with her boyfriend, a woman enters a relationship with her ex's favorite (yet reclusive) musician. The Lowdown: Despite touches of intelligence and commentary on art and artists, the rest of the movie is awash in romantic comedy semantics that are light on the romance and uneven on the comedy.

The Story: A kid finds a laser gun. The Lowdown: Neither the kid nor the laser gun ends up being all that important (or necessary).

In Brief: One of the undisputed classics of modern international film, 8 1/2 (its title literally meaning that it was Federico Fellini's eight-and-one-halfth film — seven full features and a couple short segments of omnibus films precede it). It is the movie in which the greatest of all Italian filmmakers moved completely away from traditional realism…

In Brief: Reasonably accurate account (with a modicum of subtext that's so slight as to be almost nonexistent) of the early years of composer Robert Schumann (Herbert Groenemeyer) and Clara Wieck (Nasstassja Kinski). Spring Symphony (1983) is the sort of biopic that gives biopics a bad name. It runs no risks and is so intent…

In Brief: Have you ever wondered what would happen if the husband-and-wife screenwriting team that penned the scripts for American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Howard the Duck decided to co-write, produce and direct a movie about cannibalistic ghoul vampires inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and George Romero? Well they did, and…

The Story: A look at the life, work and untimely death of transgressive fashion designer Alexander McQueen. The Lowdown: A deeply personal documentary with a stunning visual aesthetic that will leave even deliberate anti-fashionistas moved and affected.

The Story: A bored, frustrated housewife discovers that she has an unusual talent for jigsaw puzzles. The Lowdown: A quiet, human movie about desire and fulfillment, full of good performances and fully formed characters.

The Story: A young girl is sent to a Christian conversion camp that seeks to rid her of her same-sex attraction. The Lowdown: A compelling story hamstrung by poor execution and a tendency to sugarcoat its deeply disturbing subject.

The Story: A robot dog soldier escapes its government facility and bonds with two teen outcasts.  The Lowdown: A silly but enjoyable movie that would have felt right at home in the VHS era.

The Story: In a world in which puppets and humans coexist, a grizzled private investigator teams up with his ex-partner to solve a series of violent murders. The Lowdown: Almost unfathomably dumb, undeniably offensive and more fun than it has any right to be.