Movie Reviews

In Brief: Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet (1944) isn't the first time a Raymond Chandler novel was brought to the screen. In fact, the same source novel (Farewell, My Lovely) had been reconfigured as The Falcon Takes Over two years earlier. But it did mark the first onscreen appearance of Chandler's private detective Philip Marlowe…

The Story: Outlandish rival-gods hooey. The Lowdown: It's really big — and really hokey and loud and unconvincing. The most astounding thing is how something this frantic and dumb still manages to be tedious.

In Brief: Any movie that has Marlene Dietrich clamber out of a gorilla suit, don a blonde Afro and sing “Hot Voodoo” in front of a chorus line of African warrior dancing girls is OK by me — and Josef von Sternberg’s wonderfully preposterous Blonde Venus (1932) is that movie.  It’s everything a Sternberg film should be,…

The Story: An awkward, unathletic Brit ends up an unlikely Olympic ski-jumper. The Lowdown: Simplistic and cliched like so many other uplifting sports films, but with a enough charm and a pleasantness to work as simple, feel-good entertainment.

The Story: A gang of corrupt cops and ex-military contractors beholden to a Russian mob boss are tasked with a heist that can only be accomplished by luring a rookie police officer to his death. The Lowdown: A passable potboiler, ultimately full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

In Brief: Apart from the inevitable college screening of Un Chien Andalou (1927), my first acquaintance with Luis Buñuel was made in 1982 at the 47th Street Theater in New York City with a double bill of The Phantom of Liberty (1974) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972). I’m not sure a more complete full-immersion Buñuel experience is possible. Whether…

The Story: A geologist works against time and skeptics to save people from an impending tsunami in Norway. The Lowdown: Straightforward, solid disaster picture made a little different by its location.

The Story: A little boy leaves his home in country in search of his father. The Lowdown: Less a story than an essay on the evils of modern life — its mechanization, dehumanization, etc. — tied to its thin narrative. Some of it is decidedly impressive, and has earned the film an Oscar nomination. Undeniably…

In Brief: The tag line kind of says it all, "Rome. Before Christ. After Fellini." Fellini Satyricon (1969) is Fellini at his most unchecked and unfiltered. Calling the film disjointed is to miss the point, since it was adapted — or perhaps Fellinified — from Petronius' Satyricon, which exists only in fragments. The upshot of…

The Story: The based on a true story of Jesse Owens as he heads to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the heart of Nazi Germany. The Lowdown: Despite the obvious importance (both historically and currently) of Owens’ story, Race is little more than a by-the-book uplifting sports film, with every cliché this entails.

In Brief: If we must have a film of Moby Dick (and it seems we must), then John Huston's 1956 film is probably the best we're going to get. It offers a reasonable approximation of the story in terms that can best be described as operatic. No, it has little subtext, but it's strong stuff…

The Story: The story of the period right after the death of Christ from the point of view of a Roman charged with finding Christ's body. The Lowdown: Better acting and directing than most faith-based films, but it ultimately sells its own premise short by being too easy, and too obvious, too soon.

The Story: A Hungarian Jew awaiting execution in Auschwitz is pressed into service overseeing the gassing and cremation of his fellow prisoners, until the death of a boy who may be his own son sends him on a quest to steal the child’s body and secure a Rabbi to perform a religious burial. The Lowdown:…

In Brief: A much-beleaguered housewife addicted to No-Doze, a drug-dealing son, a crazy mother-in-law with a pet lizard, a son traded to a pedophilic dentist for the bill, a prostitute across the hall, a scheme to forge Hitler’s memoirs, a suicidal low-rent Lotte Lenya, kleptomania, murder (with a soupçon of Hitchcock), even a spot of…

In Brief: Perhaps because it lacks a big horror star or a cult director, Stuart Walker’s Werewolf of London (1935) has never received quite the acknowledgement it deserves — despite the fact that it’s the first werewolf movie ever made. What’s particularly unfortunate about this is, for my money, Werewolf of London remains the best werewolf picture of all…

The Story: A wisecracking, foul-mouthed superhero is out for revenge on the man who turned him into his present disfigured state. The Lowdown: Lavishly vulgar, completely disrespectful, gratuitously bloody — and an awful lot of tasteless fun if you're not turned off by those things.

The Story: Multiple stories — all built around Dakota Johnson going to New York to learn what it's like to be single. The Lowdown: It's not terrible, but neither is it especially good. It's mostly just innocuous.

The Story: A family of Puritans is banished from its New England enclave over unspecified theological disagreements and strikes out to build a life in an unforgiving wilderness, only to find that the greatest threat they face is far from natural. The Lowdown: One of the creepiest horror movies to surface in years, The Witch…

In Brief: The Undying Monster (1942) is one of the most curious of all werewolf movies — mostly because it offers so very little werewolfery. Truth to tell, it's fairly typical of Fox's rather limited forays into the horror genre. It's very well made. The cast is solid. The production values are top notch (thanks in…

In Brief: Something very different from the great Ernst Lubitsch: a straight anti-war film made in the midst of his busiest year as a filmmaker. Yes, in 1932, the same year that he gave us the shimmering comedies One Hour with You and Trouble in Paradise (not to mention his segment in If I Had a Million), he made…

The Story: The improbable, but "mostly true" story of a homeless woman who spent years living in playwright Alan Bennett's driveway. The Lowdown: A charming, touching, absolutely delightful comedy-drama with a terrific Maggie Smith performance — and an equally fine turn from Alex Jennings.