Author:   Justin Souther

Showing 484-504 of 791 results

Bill Cunningham New York

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: A look at the life and work of long-time fashion photographer and New York Times columnist Bill Cunningham. The Lowdown: A wonderful little documentary that won’t wow you as filmmaking, but may be one of the most purely enjoyable things you’re likely to see all year.

The Hangover Part II

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: The guys of the original Hangover are back, with another botched bachelor party, but this time in Thailand. The Lowdown: A mostly painless rehash of its predecessor that’s basically the original all over again, meaning there’s little reason to really care or remember that this film even exists.

Bloodworth

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: When a Tennessee family’s patriarch returns after 40 years away, his family -- namely his grandson -- must deal with the fallout. The Lowdown: A Southern Gothic tale that’s entertaining enough when its working, but which unfortunately begins to unravel as it goes along.

Decisions

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: A group of friends decide to rob a bank, but end up on the wrong side of a gangster. The Lowdown: Should’ve been a straight-to-DVD release -- and stayed there -- except it's Corey Haim’s final film, meaning the world must suffer through this bargain-basement effort.

The 5th Quarter

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: A college football team rallies around the death of the brother of one of their teammates, while his family also attempts to cope with the loss. The Lowdown: A low-budget, scattershot attempt at being a faith-based, uplifting sports flick, but too unfocused to be either.

The underdog poet

Posted on by Justin Souther

“I always kind of knew I was going to make a film about Carl Sandburg — that’s the truth,” documentarian Paul Bonesteel tells Xpress about his latest project, The Day Carl Sandburg Died. “There’s a huge amount of satisfaction with this, partly because it’s been hanging over me for 25 years. And I don’t mean […]

Water for Elephants

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: A circus worker during the Great Depression gets entangled with the show’s star attraction -- who just happens to be the boss’ wife. The Lowdown: A slick-looking romantic drama that lacks the right amount of whimsy or electricity to really work.

Rio

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: A domesticated parrot who never learned how to fly finds himself on the run from poachers in his native Brazil. The Lowdown: A colorful, sometimes visually impressive animated film that’s too jokey and reliant on slapstick, and just plain generic in its plotting.

ActionFest 2011 recap and podcast

Posted on by Justin Souther


While the official end to ActionFest came Sunday night, after the film festival’s closing night screening of Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins at The Carolina Asheville, it unofficially wound down Monday night behind the building of West Asheville’s Blue Barnhouse studio. There, a handful of people caught a screening of Evan Glodell’s pre-Apocalyptic love story Bellflower, projected on a bed sheet pegged to a couple of drainage pipes. Not far away was not only the film’s director, but also the star of the film, a matte black, fire-breathing muscle car named Mother Medusa. As a whole, this was not only the perfect finale for ActionFest 2011, but a pin-point summation of it, too, with its mix of the community driven and the unorthodox.

Source Code

Reviewed by Justin Souther on
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The Story: An Air Force pilot must find a bomber using secret government program that can place someone in the last eight minutes of another's life. The Lowdown: An intelligent, entertaining piece of sci-fi filmmaking.