Movie Reviews

In Brief: Merry Christmas from the Thursday Horror Picture Show with Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (yes, the same Bob Clark who made A Christmas Story). What better way to celebrate the season than with the original “slasher” picture? Yes, Black Christmas pretty much started it all — predating Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980) and…

The Story: An emotionally repressed loner in the Boston suburbs must confront a painful past when his brother's death drags him home to care for his teenage nephew. The Lowdown: An almost incomprehensibly moving portrayal of anguish and resilience that gracefully avoids maudlin contrivance, Manchester by the Sea is unquestionably among the best films of the year.

The Story: The cast of a rare flop by Broadway royalty Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince, leaning on the benefit of 35 years of hindsight, reflect on the ups and downs of their lives leading up to and following their disastrous work with their idols. The Lowdown: A moving and well-constructed documentary that will play to fans of musical…

The Story: A ruthless D.C. power broker picks a fight with the gun lobby over a set of ill-defined moral principles when she's asked to convince females to vote against gun control. The Lowdown: A passable political thriller that avoids the assurance of complete obscurity thanks solely to a bravura performance from Jessica Chastain.

The Story: A frivolous man-child and his hypercompetent underling concoct a harebrained scheme to save their struggling corporate branch with a massive Christmas party after the boss' sister, the company's newly minted CEO, threatens them with closure. The Lowdown: A trite and predictable entry into the holiday raunch-com subgenre that fails to deliver laughs and doesn't seem to…

In Brief: The second installment in Thursday Horror Picture Show's three-week celebration of Santa slashers, 1980's Christmas Evil, has been described by illustrious schlockmeister John Waters as "the best Christmas film ever made." While I wouldn't go quite that far, it is a shamefully underseen cult classic. Originally titled You Better Watch Out, director Lewis Jackson's only feature was critically…

In Brief: Breathless marks the start of French New Wave cinema, and regardless of how one feels about Jean-Luc Godard’s later, less accessible works, it would be hard to find a more audacious debut feature. The problem today's audiences have with it is that so much of what was fresh and revolutionary in 1960 has been assimilated…

Babes in Toyland — which generations of children have grown up knowing only by its re-issue title, March of the Wooden Soldiers — is the second of Laurel and Hardy’s excursions into opera or operetta (no, they don’t sing), and it’s by far the most elaborate and most popular. It’s been a Christmas staple for…

The Story: An L.A. art gallery owner reads a novel dedicated to her by the ex-husband she abandoned, and its violent imagery prompts her to reevaluate their relationship. The Lowdown: A twisty thriller hiding a deeper significance, Tom Ford's second film is stylish, dark and irreverent in all the right ways.

The Story: A young girl on an isolated farm suffers a tragic loss that will lead her to address her loneliness through decidedly unorthodox means as an adult. The Lowdown: Nicholas Pesce eschews traditional horror genre tropes while showcasing a deep knowledge of classical cinema in this exemplary debut feature.

The Story: A thirteen-year-old Kazakh girl defies cultural gender roles by excelling in eagle hunting, an avocation traditionally only engaged in by the men of her isolated mountain community. The Lowdown: An aesthetically stunning documentary that presents a powerful feminist message but falls prey to its filmmakers' influence.

The Story: Two actresses find their friendship torn apart by interpersonal rivalries and society's expectations of women when their vacation takes an unexpectedly surreal turn with fatal consequences. The Lowdown: Director Sophia Takal's lofty ambitions are undermined by an ideologically conflicted script, but exceptional performances save the production from outright failure.

The Story: Sole tenant of a Brazilian apartment complex defies offers from construction company to relocate after living there for decades. The Lowdown: An introspective on aging and modern Brazil, this film seriously takes a long time to deliver its very serious commentary.

The Story: An unorthodox exorcist (or evictor) who enters the minds of the afflicted is called in to remove a demon from the body of a child. The Lowdown: A curious concept isn't enough to make up for the general goofiness and low budget horrors on display.

In Brief: 'Tis the season for holiday horrors with the THPS, so for the next three Thursdays we'll be showing a selection of seasonal slashers sure to sate the sadists. We're kicking things off with the film that started this surprisingly replete subgenre, 1972's Silent Night, Bloody Night. This may well be one of the earliest examples…

In Brief: Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World (1991) is both like a Wenders film (check out the soundtrack) and not. The film — at least till it hits the final stretch — is as quirky as anything the filmmaker ever did, but it’s a bit more playful. It’s certainly one of the more…

In Brief: As far as two-tissue tearjerkers go, they don't get much weepier than George Stevens' 1941 Cary Grant, Irene Dunne dram-com, Penny Serenade. Grant and Dunne play a couple whose marriage deteriorates following the loss of a child, and the melodrama doesn't come anywhere close to ending there. For all its emotionally exploitative holiday-set heartstring tugging the…

The Story: Timothy Leary and Ram Dass reconcile their fractured friendship and recall their long, strange trip in the months leading up to Leary's death in 1997. The Lowdown: Documentarian Gay Dillingham finds an affective new angle on an extensively covered chapter of counterculture history by using the two men's mythology to address weighty existential dilemmas surrounding mortality.

The Story: In order to save her island community from ecological collapse, a young girl must reconnect with her culture's seafaring past and enlist the help of a trickster demigod to right an ancient wrong. The Lowdown: A slightly more considerate and ethnically inclusive variation on the virtually unassailable Disney model of family-friendly story telling, Moana hits all…

The Story: An ambitious young driver and a naive starlet, both under the employ of Howard Hughes, fall in love while struggling with their employer's eccentricities. The Lowdown: A passion project long in the making for director-writer-producer-actor Warren Beatty, Rules Don't Apply is very clearly the singular vision of its creator — with all of the contingent benefits and pitfalls…

The Story: A Canadian intelligence officer and a French resistance fighter try to start a family under the shadow of suspicion during WWII. The Lowdown: A better concept than the film that resulted, Allied wears its influences on its sleeve but fails to live up to its Classical Hollywood antecedents.