**UPDATED DEC. 7** Black Cloud and Whistle Hop turn one, Rayburn Farm and Archetype host a pineapple sage brew-off, and Cliff Mori talks American sours in this week’s local beer news.
Author: Scott Douglas
Showing 253-273 of 712 results
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Story: The mother of a murdered child throws her small town into chaos when she rents three billboards on a rural stretch of road to prod the local authorities into prioritizing her daughter's case. The Lowdown: An improbably compelling and complex character study that may be Martin McDonagh's first true must-see movie.
Coco
The Story: A young aspiring musician finds himself cast into the land of the dead on a quest to reunite with the spirit of his great-great-grandfather. The Lowdown: A touching story told with remarkable visual flair that imparts important lessons about death and family while exposing kids to Mexican cultural traditions.
Roman J. Israel, Esq.
The Story: An idealistic lawyer finds his ideals challenged when the death of his law partner forces him into a world of moral turpitude. The Lowdown: A good film that never reaches the heights of which it was capable, tackling important issues without successfully addressing them due to a bloated script and frustrating conclusion.
HFS December hiatus
The Hendersonville Film Society will not be screening films through the month of December. Regularly scheduled shows will resume in January.
Black Christmas
In Brief: Merry Christmas from the Asheville Film Society with Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (yes, the same Bob Clark who made A Christmas Story). What better way to celebrate the season than with the original “slasher” picture? Yes, Black Christmas pretty much started it all — predating Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare…
Black Star Line Brewing Co. deals with racist comments, vandalism, death threats
Threats against the Hendersonville brewery, WNC’s first owned by a black, queer woman, have been countered by support from community allies.
Lady Bird
The Story: A teen struggles to define her identity as she navigates the social pressures of late adolescence. The Lowdown: An utterly beguiling portrait of early adulthood that avoids the saccharine navel-gazing so typical of the coming-of-age genre while simultaneously establishing writer/director Greta Gerwig as a cinematic force to be reckoned with.
The Square
The Story: A wealthy museum curator sets off a chain of minor disasters when he tries to recover his stolen cellphone and wallet. The Lowdown: An existential cringe comedy that skewers the modern art world while expressing a deeper disdain for the posturing of those who populate it — a black comedy with a social conscience.
Justice League
The Story: Batman recruits a team of metahuman superheroes to combat an alien threat to terrestrial life. The Lowdown: A perfunctory and redundant comic book cash grab that fails on multiple levels.
The Blood of a Poet (Le Sange d’un Poete)
In Brief: The first of French Avant-garde director Jean Cocteau's films, Le Sange d'un Poete (1932) may not carry the same level of esteem as his later works such as La Belle et la Bête (1946), but it's a fascinating artifact nonetheless. Yes, it may be a little rough around the edges, but Cocteau's literary sensibilities and Surrealist tendencies are…
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
In Brief: As someone who grew under the shadow of Cold War brinksmanship, I was really hoping that the concerns raised in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) could be relegated to the trash heap of cultural artifacts alongside bellbottoms and disco. Sadly, this was not to…
Beer today, gone tomorrow: Asheville beer happenings Nov. 21-27
Burial releases three packaged beers, Catawba releases two and Highland brings back Black Watch in this week’s local beer news.
Goodbye Christopher Robin
The Story: Author A.A. Milne creates a cherished series of stories based on his son's toys in an attempt to cope with his own trauma. The Lowdown: Often treacly and superficial but seldom overtly objectionable.
Murder on the Orient Express
The Story: World-renowned Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is confronted with a challenging mystery when a man turns up dead on a train with a dozen compelling suspects. The Lowdown: If you like the original novel or the Sydney Lumet version from the '70s, chances are you'll find this acceptable — if somewhat pointless.
Night Tide
In Brief: Curtis Harrington is one of the most overlooked talents of the mid-century cinema, and Night Tide (1961) may well be his masterpiece of movie marginalia. And though it has been marginalized, it’s far from trivial — this evocative mood piece carries the mantle of producer Val Lewton more justifiably than almost any other modern…
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
The Story: A heart surgeon's placid existence is upended by an unexpected threat to his family. The Lowdown: Equal parts compelling and confounding, director Yorgos Lanthimos continues to codify his idiosyncratic auteurial signature with this disturbing tragedy of psychological suspense.
The Florida Project
The Story: A girl spends an eventful summer living with her impoverished young mother in an Orlando motel. The Lowdown: Like a modern-day De Sica with a DSLR, Sean Baker continues to mine the margins of society for compelling human stories that give the Neorealist cinematic inclination a decidedly American update.
Jane
The Story: Lost footage of Jane Goodall's early work with chimpanzees in Tanzania reveals new insight into her public and private lives during a pivotal period. The Lowdown: A thoughtful and well-executed biographical documentary that should prove to be a real crowd-pleaser.
Thor: Ragnarok
The Story: Thor finds himself uncharacteristically behind the proverbial eight ball when a looming cataclysm and an encounter with his sister Hela, goddess of death, leave him stranded on an alien world fighting for his life in a gladiatorial arena. The Lowdown: Director Taika Waititi crafts one one of the best Marvel movies to date by subverting genre…
Nanook of the North
In Brief: While Nanook of the North (1922) has been criticized for filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty's interference with his subjects and admitted staging of scenes, there can be no doubt that the film remains a cornerstone of the documentary genre. Much of what we take for granted in modern nature docs was relatively revolutionary at the time, and Flaherty's…