The Story: Octogenarian auteur Agnes Varda joins up-and-coming street artist JR on a road trip photographing distinctive faces throughout the French countryside. The Lowdown: A surprisingly moving and enjoyable documentary that only confirms my suspicion the Agnes Varda may be the most charming person on the planet.

The Story: A murder plot and racial tensions undermine the superficial perfection of a rigidly planned 1950s suburban community.  The Lowdown: Clooney's take on a Coen script is more con than pro — file this one under false advertising.

In Brief: As far a cinematic oddities go, John Huston's Beat the Devil (1953) ranks among the strangest. Huston and star Humphrey Bogart were both apparently sick enough of the reputations they built on films like The Maltese Falcon and Treasure of the Sierra Madre that they chose to parody those films with this one, made up as they…

The Story: A team of elite firefighters risks it all to save lives and homes when they confront dangerous and unpredictable wildfires. The Lowdown: A fact-based tale of valor and sacrifice that has its heart in the right place even when its story beats are not.

The Story: Dysfunctional detective tracks a serial killer targeting mothers, only to find his own family in the killer's crosshairs. The Lowdown: Most films that serve up genre cliches this poorly rehashed at least have the decency to reheat them first.

In Brief: Giallo master Dario Argento got off to a strong start with his 1970 feature debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. While it's nowhere near as accomplished as his later masterpieces, Bird's graphic violence and salacious subject matter would come to define the Italian horror films of the ensuing decades and set a template for the director's later…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society wraps up its October horror slate with one last sadistic scare, and its timing couldn't be more appropriate. On Halloween, we'll be showing John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) — one of Carpenter's best films and one of the creepiest slasher movies of all time. It may not have been the first example…

The Story: A young man tries to deliver a letter from the late Vincent van Gogh and uncovers mysterious circumstances surrounding his alleged suicide in the process. The Lowdown: A remarkable and utterly unique approach to van Gogh and his art that fully immerses the audience and does its subject justice in a way that few films…

The Story: An aging man with a life of simple routine contemplates his mortality. The Lowdown: A beautifully understated film that provides a fitting coda to the long life and illustrious career of the late Harry Dean Stanton.

The Story: A psychology professor's romantic and sexual proclivities lead to a long-term polyamorous relationship that results in the creation of the most iconic feminist character in the history of comic books. The Lowdown: A biopic that fails to live up to the intriguing true story that inspired it.

In Brief: One of director William Wellman's best early pictures — and certainly one of his most socially conscious in its early representation of rape culture — Beggars of Life (1928) is a powerful film pulled from a pulpy story that could have amounted to little more than a vagrant-centric exploitation flick in lesser hands. Louise Brooks stars as…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society keeps rolling out historic horror hits this week with a slight change of pace: Fritz Lang's exceptional silent fantasy/horror hybrid, Destiny (1921). Lang's breakout picture is also one of his most underrated, despite being massively influential — it's the movie that prompted Luis Buñuel to pick up a camera, its impact on…

The Story: Blade runner K, tasked with retiring a new breed of replicants on the streets of a dystopian Los Angeles, stumbles upon a decades-old conspiracy that throws everything he knows about his work and himself into doubt. The Lowdown: A visual masterpiece that supersedes its predecessor in almost every conceivable way.

The Story: A thorough recounting of the lengthy and storied career of activist Dolores Huerta, a pioneering advocate for the rights of Latino migrant workers. The Lowdown: A thought provoking documentary with a fascinating subject that is very nearly undermined by its rote direction and aggressive pacing.

The Story: Queen Victoria befriends an Indian Muslim who teaches her Urdu and the Quaran, much to the consternation of her "racialist" royal retinue. The Lowdown: A charming film that lacks the depth of social commentary its subject could (and should) have borne, but scores points with a stellar turn from Judi Dench.

In Brief: It's not often that films from the Checkoslovak New Wave are screened, and that's a genuine shame because they represent some of the most original filmmaking coming out of Europe in the '60s. Karel Zeman's antiwar satire A Jester's Tale (1964) is no exception — its blend of live action and animation is unlike anything else…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society's month of Halloween horrors marches on with the first of two Budget Big Screen presentations — William Friedkin's seminal classic of supernatural religious horror, The Exorcist (1973). It's nearly impossible to overstate the impact of this film on the horror movie landscape, and its influence continues to echo through the genre…