Brew Views The role of the Understanding Dad has a long history in teen girl coming-of-age movies—its lineage runs from Donald Crisp through Harry Dean Stanton. But in recent years an interesting subspecie ...   More

Brew Views More hectic and violent than its Swedish inspiration, and consequently far less interesting, Let Me In still contains a few memorable elements: The use of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance& ...   More

Brew Views Discussion question: Why are Swedish rape movies so popular with retirees? The other day I was in my local library branch, dropping off my ballot, and overheard the silver-haired librarian discussing ...   More

Brew Views Fairly cleverly timed to coincide with the opening of the obviously derivative Due Date, this Friday’s late-night show of Planes, Trains and Automobiles is noteworthy as a reminder of exactly ho ...   More

Brew Views In this spooky season, innumerable movies can deliver your fix of torture-dealing maniacs and irritable ghosts, but it takes a special picture to make FFA cattle auctions seem endlessly ominous. I&rsq ...   More

Brew Views No one ever accused Bert I. Gordon of abandoning his favorite themes. They called him Mr. B.I.G., because the director used rear-projecting small creatures to look like large creatures, and a year aft ...   More

Brew Views Ambrosia for connoisseurs of ’70s big-beastie pictures, The Food of the Gods has the broad acting and menagerie fixation of the era’s Disney pictures, except it’s trying to be a horr ...   More

Brew Views The 35th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws has triggered another round of finger-pointing about whether this movie or Star Wars dealt the death blow to the intelligent moviemaking of the 19 ...   More

Brew Views The greatest three seconds of the schlocky 1987 teen vampires in Cali bloodfest The Lost Boys belong to a muscly lunk named Tim Cappello, who sears retinas as a bare-chested, greased-up, pelvic-gyrati ...   More

Brew Views Among the debatable benefits of the new, improvisational approach to forging comedies (philosophy: Let the jesters riff for hours, pick the best bits in the cutting room) is the supporting performance ...   More