Movie Reviews

The Story: A lone female vampire prowls the nearly deserted streets of Bad City, Iran. The Lowdown: Fascinating, moody, deliberately paced, often compelling — and very odd — take on the vampire genre mixed with the art film. It's also flawed in some serious ways, but on balance, it's certainly worth a look. It's also…

The Story: An experimental robot that can think falls into the hands of some low-rent gangsters. The Lowdown: No, it's not the outright abomination some are claiming, but Neill Blomkamp's latest is still a noisy, ugly, barely coherent mess.

In Brief:  By his own admission, The Sun Shines Bright was John Ford's favorite of his films. While I'm always a little skeptical of artists judging their own work — and how long they may or may not have felt that way — I'm inclined to accept his word in this case. The film is so much…

In Brief: People have been asking for this for years — and here it is. I'm in the hit-or-miss column with Argento. I like his early thrillers, and I'm amused by Phenomena and Opera, but I have issues with a lot of his work, including Suspiria. It's the only Argento film I saw on its original release in a…

In Brief: Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) is about as close to a perfect film as you’re likely to get. It’s that rarest of movies in that it’s a filmmaker favorite (I’ve yet to meet the director who didn’t treasure it), a film buff’s delight and immediately accessible to the more casual moviegoer all…

The Story: A con man and his one-time protege — and romantic interest — get tangled up in a scheme. The Lowdown: A clever and honestly surprising movie that’s held back due to the weak chemistry and miscasting of its two leads.

The Story: The film invites you — and a never seen documentary crew — to spend some time with a houseful of old-school vampires who are trying to be modern. The Lowdown: Surprisingly fresh and funny — despite its dubious mockumentary approach — and blessed with appealingly goofy characters and even a few bona fide…

In Brief: The Soloist is not a bad movie, but the best that can be said of it is that it qualifies as an honorable failure. Everything about The Soloist screams quality production — highly rated director Joe Wright, even more highly rated stars Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. and a message-heavy “true-life” story. What more could…

"Immorality may be fun, but it isn’t fun enough to take the place of 100-percent virtue and three square meals a day,” opines Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton) on more than one occasion in Ernst Lubitsch’s Design for Living. The film then goes out of its way to prove him wrong, which might seem a…

In Brief: For years, Ken Russell cited Song of Summer (1968) as his favorite of his films. That’s understandable — and I wouldn’t say it was wrong (to the degree that a favorite can even be wrong) — but I would caution against taking his word on any given film as etched in stone, because…

In Brief: James Whale’s Frankenstein  was only the second entry in the first wave of cinematic horror, but it’s also what can be called the first modern horror picture. By that I mean that the film is unapologetic about its horror content. There is none of the reticence of Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) here. Frankenstein is a film that…

The Story: When a girl finds out she's a DUFF (designated ugly fat friend), she sets out to change her life. The Lowdown: Likable enough high school rom-com can't overcome the been-there-done-that predictability of its story. Still, it's painless and pleasant.

The Story: The lives of a supremely dysfunctional group of Hollywoodites intersect with tragically inevitable consequences. The Lowdown: Part Hollywood satire, part dark melodrama, all fascinating David Cronenberg film. Some will love it, others will absolutely hate it.

In Brief: It really isn't possible to review one of these Cinerama showpiece movies. They exist — apart from making a few bucks — solely to wow the viewer with the Cinerama process. To honestly assess them on that basis, you'd have to see them in a Cinerama theater on a Cinerama screen with the…

In Brief: When I say that Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) is probably my least favorite of his films — exempting Bottle Rocket (1996) — understand that I'm talking in terms of relative superlatives. It was my introduction to Anderson — which might better be called my full-immersion baptism. This was back in the…

In Brief: Perched somewhere on the border between Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) is Edward L. Cahn's Invisible Invaders (1959). Its plot concerns aliens invading the Earth by occupying the bodies of the recently dead — just like Plan 9, which went into general release afterwards but was made…

The Lowdown: After re-jiggering the past to suit their needs with their time machine made out of a hot tub, three buddies travel into the future to stop a murder. The Story: A flaccid, unimaginative and chuckleheaded raunchy comedy whose only novelty is that it exists in the first place.

The Story: A former high school football coach on his last chance takes up a job coaching cross country in a poor, Hispanic California town. The Lowdown: A wholly perfunctory, inoffensive and vaguely watchable uplifting sports flick that’s riddled with clichés and a lack of surprises.

The Story: A film on the last 25 years of the British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner. The Lowdown: This is nothing short of a masterpiece with a central performance of immense, if hard to penetrate, power from Timothy Spall. But be warned, it's a prickly, difficult film that lacks much in the way of a…

The Story: Billionaire S&M aficionado tries to win over guileless 27-year-old virgin. Object: discipline. The Lowdown: Awful acting, dreadful dialogue and tepid titillation combine to sink this essay in pseudo-sexy tedium.

The Story: The supersecret Kingsman agency has to go head-to-head with a madman with an extreme — and extremely lethal — plan to solve climate change. The Lowdown: Wildly inappropriate, politically incorrect, possibly reprehensible, ultrastylish, violent, bloody, over-the-top fun that will delight some and appall others — and may well delight and appall some at…