Movie Reviews

The Story: A desperate man is given a chance at winning a million dollars if he completes 13 tasks, which, unsurprisingly, turn out to be much worse than he imagines. The Lowdown: A truly solid horror thriller with a compelling, darkly humorous story and an unusually complex moral center. It's not perfect, but it's good.

The Story: An aging, far from affluent and not very happy British couple try to relive their honeymoon on a weekend in Paris. The Lowdown: Honestly, it was little more than a coin toss whether or not this fine film was going to be the Weekly Pick. It easily could have been. Rich, funny, touching…

In Brief: Two-hit wonder Frank LaLoggia's first film Fear No Evil (1981) is just about everything you could hope for in a late 1970s-early 1980s horror picture — and then some. It's exploitative, it's in crashingly bad taste, it's cheesy and it's pretty silly. Beyond that, it's rich in new wave and punk rock, has…

The Story: A young woman sets out to prove that her brother wasn't responsible for the murder of their father 11 years ago. The real culprit, she insists, is an evil mirror. The Lowdown: Though it's certainly good — and should be seen by discerning horror fans — Oculus is a few scares shy of the…

In Brief: It snagged four Oscars (including best actor) and was nominated for three more (including best picture), but what continues to set High Noon apart stems from its extreme simplicity. The narrative — a retired marshal stays on to deal with the return of the man he put in prison despite receiving no support…

The Story: Part two of Lars von Trier's study of the life of a nymphomaniac as she tells it to a sympathetic listener. The Lowdown: Grimmer and less fun than Vol. I but with its share of dark humor, Vol. II is consistently interesting, and occasionally, it truly soars. I suspect it would be (largely)…

In Brief: Werewolf of London is the first werewolf movie ever made, and it is still the best and most adult. It is often shunted aside in favor of the more famous Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf Man movies. That's too bad for a variety of reasons — not the least of which is that it's…

In Brief: The Asheville Jewish Film Festival's second offering this year is another documentary. This one is Jason Hutt's Sukkah City — a film about an architectural competition devoted to coming up with new designs for building a sukkah (a traditional temporary structure used during the festival of Sukkot). The idea is intriguing, and the…

The Story: Sequel to the popular Indonesian actioner The Raid: Redemption — with more of everything. The Lowdown: Depending on your tastes in such matters, The Raid 2 is likely to be either the ultimate in martial arts action thrillers, or it will be too much of a violent thing — especially at 2 1/2…

The Story: Captain America returns to battle a mysterious, powerful assassin. The Lowdown: A noisy actioner that is passable as big-budget entertainment.  

In Brief: Ernst Lubitsch's second sound film Monte Carlo finds the great filmmaker without the benefit of Maurice Chevalier but with a much tighter, funnier screenplay than its famous predecessor. Lubitsch himself seems more relaxed with the new medium of sound here and creates a wonderful souffle of comedy and music — of the kind…

In Brief:  World Cinema continues their monthlong Alain Resnais tribute with the director's enigmatic Last Year at Marienbad — a dreamlike fantasy about two people who may or may not have met "last year at Marienbad" meeting there again. It is by turns mesmerizing and maddening, but it is never less than fascinating. Its meaning…

In Brief: (Make-up showing of the one cancelled by snow.) Despite its full title, Spider Baby probably isn't the maddest story ever told, but it's in the running — at least as schlock exploitation film is concerned. Enjoyably trashy and occasionally downright amateurish, it's the fairly silly story of a house full of folks suffering…

The Story: A foul-mouthed 40-something finds a loophole for entering a children’s spelling bee, which he plans on making a mockery of. The Lowdown: An occasionally amusing, sometimes sweet comedy with solid direction that unfortunately does little to be memorable.

The Story: Inventor Tim Jenison sets out to prove how Vermeer painted his pictures by duplicating his method. The Lowdown: An interesting and often entertaining concept that at least suggests how Vermeer may have worked, but it ultimately confuses mechanics with artistic creation.

The Story: After stealing $10 million from a drug cartel, the members of an elite DEA task force start turning up dead. The Lowdown: An idiotically plotted, unlikable, laborious action movie that’s both tasteless and boring.

In Brief: Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his portrayal of Truman Capote in this biographical drama centered around Capote researching and writing In Cold Blood. It's certainly a good performance, and it's housed in a good, but never quite great, film. It is also a very chilly affair, and it's much easier to…

In Brief: This year's Asheville Jewish Film Festival runs four Thursdays in April (with matinees on following Fridays). The opening night film is the heartwarming documentary, Dancing in Jaffa. The film features professional ballroom dancer Pierre Dulaine pursuing his dream of returning to his native city of Jaffa to teach the both Jewish and Palestinian…

In Brief: World Cinema kicks off its monthlong retrospective on the works of the late Alian Resnais with the film that not only started it all for Resnais but marked the beginning of the entire French New Wave, Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959). On its simplest level, the film is about the affair between a French…

The Story: A self-proclaimed nymphomaniac tells her life story — assuming she's not making it up — to a sympathetic listener who finds her lying unconscious in an alley. The Lowdown: Yes, it's as sexually explicit as you've probably heard, but I don't think eroticism is what von Trier's latest is about. Vol. 1 is…

The Story: A long-grieving widow falls in love with a man who looks exactly like her husband. The Lowdown: A fairly ridiculous story with an uneven tone and improbable plot twists is turned into something far better than it has any right to be by the sensitive playing of stars Annette Bening and Ed Harris…