Movie Reviews

The Story: A highly fictionalized account of the mythical 1964 fight between Bruce Lee and Shaolin master Wong Jack Man. The Lowdown: Bore of the drag-on.

The Story: In 19th-century Paris, runaway orphans Felicie and Victor try to make it big as a ballerina and an inventor. The Lowdown: Heavy-handed, hideous and humorless, the talented supporting voice cast can't do much with this tripe that even the little kids in the target audience will assuredly rip to shreds on the way…

In Brief: No, this isn’t the Baz Luhrmann musical (you’ll note the title lacks the exclamation point — and rightly so). This is John Huston’s colorful, but largely stock 1952 biopic on Toulouse-Lautrec (José Ferrer — performing a good deal of the film on his knees). Huston’s big interest seems to have been in creating a…

In Brief: Fresh from All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Lewis Milestone tackled the job of bringing Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's 1928 Broadway hit newspaper comedy The Front Page to the screen. Nothing could be more different. All Quiet had been naturally cinematic, but The Front Page was set mostly — in the…

The Story: An adult fixated on a TV show from his sheltered childhood tries to finish the story of his hero when the series comes to an abrupt end. The Lowdown: A heartfelt indie dramedy that speaks to the nature and potential purpose of rabid fandom, perfectly suited to geek-culture obsessives.

The Story: The story of the police shooting of Michael Brown and its aftermath. The Lowdown: A powerful document of a tumultuous time that nevertheless remains hopeful.

The Story: Two brothers in an economically depressed West Virginia coal town plot a heist during a major NASCAR race in Charlotte. The Lowdown: A trailer park successor to Steven Soderbergh's Oceans films that's pure popcorn entertainment, at least if you're willing to overlook its regressive attitudes about its characters' Southern roots.

The Story: An ex-CIA agent must escort one of the world's deadliest assassins to testify against the ex-Soviet dictator responsible for his capture. The Lowdown: But mostly it's just really funny and looks like hell.

The Story: When the FBI is dispatched to investigate a homicide on a Native American reservation, a local hunter must choose whether to assist the investigation or take matters into his own hands. The Lowdown: A clumsy blend of family drama and police procedural that tries to shock but can barely stay grounded.

The Story: After botching a bank robbery, a small-time hood must figure out a way to get his brother out of Rikers Island jail. The Lowdown: An unintentionally silly and not very interesting deep dive into crime-ridden streets that's not very intelligent or entertaining.

In Brief: In Chocolat (2001), Lasse Hallström walks a fine line with material that could easily have slipped into the realm of the too precious, but it never falters as it tells a predictable story of a woman (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter (Victoire Thivisol) who come to a small French town in 1959 and…

In Brief: As the connective tissue ostensibly created to tie up some loose-ends following the abrupt cancellation of Twin Peaks, David Lynch's Fire Walk With Me was critically derided on its release in 1992 — not for what it was, but for what it wasn't. Those looking for resolution to the seminal TV series' notorious cliff-hanger were bitterly disappointed, audiences booed the…

The Story: The step dance team of a girls high school in Baltimore prepares for a big competition while navigating the social pressures inherent to life as an inner-city teen. The Lowdown: An uplifting documentary that makes no attempt to hide its motivations.

The Story: The creepy doll from The Conjuring and Annabelle gets an origin story. The Lowdown: If its narrative necessity is questionable, its fun and functionality are not.

The Story: Surly Squirrel and the gang are back, this time to stop the Mayor from turning their home, Liberty Park, into Liberty Land, a garish amusement park. The Lowdown: Weird, cool and funny, this is your best bet this week if you're trying to decide between this and the mountain of garbage currently being…

The Story: The story of Gertrude Bell, an avid explorer of the Middle East whose efforts in the service of the British Empire proved essential to the creation of Iraq as a nation state following World War I. The Lowdown: A frustratingly fashioned character study that fails to do justice to its fascinating subject.

The Story: The story of a woman, from her impoverished upbringing by dysfunctional parents to the way this affects her in adulthood. The Lowdown: A good (if unspectacular cast) can't push this film beyond its wonky structure and confused characterizations.  

In Brief: The most critically damned of all Ingmar Bergman films, the legendary director’s only English-language work is by now ripe for rediscovery and reappraisal as an intensely personal work unlike anything else in his filmography. The Serpent’s Egg is nothing if not peculiar. For his vision of Germany, Bergman seems more reliant on Sternberg’s The Blue…

In Brief: It's easy to forget that HBO wasn't always known for its original programming, but that was certainly the case when Something the Lord Made debuted over a dozen years ago. At the time, the pay-cable outlet had seen some success with shows like The Wire, Deadwood  and The Sopranos, but the days of ratings domination with hits like Game of Thrones…

In Brief: Very few people have seen Stanley Kubrick's feature directorial debut Fear and Desire (1953), and for good reason — the director hated this early work so much that he tried to have every print destroyed. Luckily for us, he failed. While it's by no means a great film, Kubrick's criticism of his own work…

The Story: Al Gore returns with an update on the current state of the climate change crisis. Spoiler alert: Things don't look good. The Lowdown: The feel-good movie of the summer for people anxiously awaiting the apocalypse.