Movie Reviews

In Brief: Boasting one of the screwiest premises (thanks to Stephen King) ever — about a possessed commercial laundry machine — The Mangler is nonsense of the highest order. But it's entertaining nonsense that's served up with no shortage of panache and atmosphere — and actually turns out to have something on its mind as…

In Brief: Charles Chaplin's last film is much better than is often assumed — an assumption based on its box office failure in 1967. Does this romantic comedy live up to the Chaplin movies that come before it? No — in no small part because it's devoid of one of Chaplin's greatest instruments, his presence.…

The Story: A nitwit neighborhood watch group tries to save the world from an alien invasion. The Lowdown: This moronic mess is staggering in its sheer cosmic God-awfulness.

In Brief: The last of Woody Allen's films that qualifies as one of his "early funny ones," Love and Death may well be Allen's most completely successful such film. A wildly comedic spoof of all things Ingmar Bergman and Sergei Eisenstein, the film is pure Allen without the often awkward staging that mars the physical…

The Story: A group of dancers in Miami must figure out a way to stop their neighborhood from being bulldozed by greedy developers. The Lowdown: A hokey, occasionally amateurish foray in the dance film genre, with a topical — and confused — message about economic equality that thankfully saves itself by being dumb enough to…

In Brief: The Hendersonville Film Society is screening the second part of John Frankenheimer's film of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh.

The Story: The final film in Christopher Nolan's Batman series. The Lowdown: A more human, more entertaining, less oppressive Batman movie than might have been expected. It's not as weighty as it probably means to be, but it's undeniably entertaining and well-made.

In Brief: An atmospheric — and typically over-the-top — little chiller from Mexico about the director of an insane asylum and his attempts to go beyond the grave. Made by the major Mexican horror director of the era, Fernando Méndez, the film is much stronger on creepy images than it is on logic.

In Brief: A thoroughly fascinating movie about the bureaucratic process of what happens after we die. The film's basic idea of the dead having to choose one single memory to take with them into eternity is conceptually fanciful and rather (deliberately) mundane in execution. This latter aspect causes part of the movie to become a…

The Story: A trio of writers from Seattle magazine go looking for the story behind an ad looking for a partner for a time travel experiment. The Lowdown: A funny, moving, close to perfect little film that constantly defies the odds to become much more than what its premise and budget suggest is possible. A…

The Story: A fact-based, feel-good, odd couple comedy-drama about a rich white quadriplegic and his poor black caregiver. The Lowdown: Slickly made, a little Hollywoodized, a little corny, but with a core of truth and splendid performances that transcend its limitations.

In Brief: A flamboyant gay filmmaker — trying to get over a lost love — takes up with a dangerously possessive and unstable young man, who will do anything to keep his hold on the filmmaker. Pedro Almodovar's first U.S. hit is an unabashedly personal, deeply disturbing, but sometimes very funny work that holds back…

In Brief: The American Film Theatre was a short-lived attempt by producer Ely Landau to bring stage drama to the screen. The resulting films weren't quite canned theatre, but neither were they wildly cinematic. John Frankenheimer's film of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1973) was no different, but it was and is a beautifully cast…

The Story: The prehistoric animals of the Ice Age franchise must deal with cataclysm and pirates. The Lowdown: A completely pointless animated film that’s mostly harmless, more of the same and horribly dull.

In Brief: Long suppressed by MGM, James Whale's 1936 film of the classic Broadway show, Show Boat, is far and away the best version ever made. Much more faithful than MGM's rather tacky 1951 film, it works on every level, thanks to Whale's masterful blending of cinema and theater. He gets every last bit of…

In Brief: David Cronenberg's brilliant horror-sci-fi-satire Videodrome seemed pretty far-fetched when it hit movie screens in 1983, but his vision of a world where technology would become so out of control that the line between mankind and his devices would become blurred in one gooey package (termed "the new flesh") no longer seems all that…

In Brief: As close to a perfect combination of writing, acting, directing and scoring as you're likely to get, James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein is that rarest of horror film that completely transcends questions of genre. It simply emerges as one of the great movies of all time without qualification. In fact, it's a master…

In Brief: Wildly pre-code gangster comedy that spoofs star Edward G. Robinson's tough guy image. Robinson plays the notorious "Bugs" Ahearn who gets out of the rackets when Prohibition is repealed and heads to California to learn to be a gentleman. Snappy, funny and frequently startling in what they got away with before the production…

The Story:A 3-D music documentary about pop star Katy Perry. The Lowdown: A fun and flattering, performance-heavy documentary that Perry fans will love, and non-fans won’t mind if they bother to see it for some reason.

In Brief: Hello, Dolly! seems marginally less appalling now than it did in 1969. What once merely screamed, "big budget-bad movie," now comes across as harmless camp. Yeah, it's still the last word in empty glitter-ball cinema, but the aroma of studio-crippling extravagance has dissipated. Still, when people say they don't like musicals, you can…

The Story: The Spider-Man origin story told anew to kickstart the franchise. The Lowdown: Well-made and entertaining — and boasting improved lead actors — but rather unremarkable. It may be as good as the film it reboots, but the freshness is gone.