Movie Reviews

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

In Brief: Argentinian writer/director Lucrecia Martel's feature debut is not exactly a feel-good story. It's a tense, transgressive tale of middle-class decay in a sultry South American setting, and the only thing Martel captures as acutely as the steamy backdrop is the moral dissipation of the families at her narrative's core. Anchored by a riveting performance from Graciela…

In Brief: After Connie and Carla (2004) failed to duplicate the freakish $244 million success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) — by about $236 million — Nia Vardolos more or less withdrew from the scene, only to return with My Life in Ruins (2009). Apparently, she thought it was closer in tone to…

The Story: A young man finds success as a telemarketer, only to be ensnared in the megalomaniacal machinations of an unhinged corporate fat cat. The Lowdown: A surrealist satire with an anarchic streak that defies description, as insightful as it is brutally funny.

The Story: A widower and traumatized war veteran raises his daughter on the fringes of society, surviving in densely forested parklands while trying to avoid the authorities. The Lowdown: A moving melodrama with a resonant emotional core that benefits from immaculate characterization and a beautiful backdrop.

The Story: The staff of the Hotel Transylvania takes a much-needed vacation, boarding a cruise ship run by an "entertainment for monsters" company headed by a captain who isn't quite what she seems. The Lowdown: Fun and idiosyncratic in its classic horror movie references, this sweet and raucous kids comedy is a worthy placeholder between…

The Story: An emotionally damaged mother reluctantly agrees to a long road trip with her dysfunctional, drug-dealing father. The Lowdown: An overlong, needlessly sentimental and generally unfunny attempt at a quirky family comedy.

The Story: A father must rescue his family from mercenaries in the flaming wreckage of the world's tallest building. The Lowdown: A derivative foreign market cash-grab that leaves audiences between The Rock and a hard place. If there's any justice in the world, a Chinese poster will mistranslate the title to the far more accurate "Sky's Crapper."

In Brief: When it was first released in 1967, Richard Burton’s film version of Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus was pretty soundly trounced by the critics. And while from today’s perspective it’s not hard to see why, it is hard to understand how they didn’t at least recognize they were in the presence of…