This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Take your pick: A disaster movie, or a movie that's something of a disaster.

"San Andreas" brings high-tech special effects to the old-school disaster epic, as massive earthquakes rumble through California and wiping out skyscrapers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The action is centered around a family — an L.A. rescue helicopter pilot (Dwayne Johnson), his estranged wife (Carla Gugino) and their college-bound daughter (Alexandra Daddario) — trying to survive the wreckage. The action set pieces are nicely staged, compensating for the clunky plotting and dialogue that's so bad it's entertaining.

The romance "Aloha" is a mess, with too many ideas and offbeat characters crowding out each other for attention. Bradley Cooper stars as a military contractor brought to Hawaii by his billionaire boss (Bill Murray) to smooth over relations with the native Hawaiians before a major defense-contract construction project. While there, Cooper's character meets up with his ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams), who's now married with two kids, and encounters a plucky fighter pilot (Emma Stone). Despite the stellar cast, director-writer Cameron Crowe's rhythms are off, and nothing feels authentic. (There's also, as The Daily Beast's Jen Yamato points out, the fact that a movie set in racially diverse Hawaii has a cast that's all white — and tells us that Stone is playing a character who is a quarter Hawaiian and a quarter Chinese.)

The highlight of the movie weekend requires a bit of commitment: It's "The Apu Trilogy," Indian master Satyajit Ray's landmark series that chronicle the life of a poor Bengali boy from birth to adulthood. The movies, made in the late '50s, have been carefully restored, and the results are worth taking a day to experience. (The Broadway Centre Cinemas is screening the three films every day, starting at noon, and will screen them in sequence in the evenings — so you can watch them all at once, or one at a time.)

"Slow West" is a lyrical homage to the Western genre, filmed in New Zealand by director John Maclean. It centers on a naive Scottish teen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) traveling alone to the Colorado territory, who is aided by a jaded tracker (Michael Fassbender) with a hidden motive to help the kid. The visuals are stunning, and Maclean captures the struggle between cynicism and hope that is at the heart of all Westerns.

Lastly, the documentary "Lambert & Stamp" chronicles the partnership between Kit Lambert and Christopher Stamp, who managed an unknown British band into the rock phenomenon known as The Who. The interviews with Stamp, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey are revealing, but director James D. Cooper's frenetic editing is distracting.