Movie Reviews

In Brief: Harry Lachman's Dante's Inferno (1935) may be more of a curio than anything else, but what a curio it is. It was an expensive production with most of the money being spent on an elaborate vision of the title Inferno (based on Gustave Dore's engravings) — and the film would be worth seeing…

The Story: Fact-based hooey about a police sergeant who becomes involved in a case of demonic possession in the Bronx. The Lowdown: A somewhat atmospheric but way too long horror picture that has nothing new to offer.

In Brief: Horror meets the biographical film in Ken Russell's Gothic (1986) — a stylish and very wild and woolly take on Lord Byron's (Gabriel Byrne) house party at the villa in Switzerland with Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson), Percy Shelley (Julian Sands) and Dr. Polidori (Timothy Spall). This, of course, was the famous party that…

In Brief: Will Rogers' last movie, and his third in collaboration with director John Ford, is one of the comedian's most popular and one of his best. Rogers plays a patent medicine salesman with dreams of being a steamboat captain — dreams that are put on hold when his nephew (and future riverboat pilot) comes up…

The Story: Giant robot Optimus Prime must stop an old nemesis and his former allies — mankind. The Lowdown: A loud, noisy, stupid and incredibly angry movie that’s far too long and only occasionally interesting thanks to its screwy worldview.

In Brief: Mystifyingly popular film version of an equally mystifyingly popular Neil Simon play about an attempt to reunite two aging vaudevillians for a TV special. Almost as mystifying is the reason for doing this, since the one-time partners cordially detest each other, but without the attempt, there's no story. The sole point of calm…

The Story: Documentary about cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky's incredibly ambitious, never-made film of Frank Herbert's Dune. The Lowdown: One of the most entertaining documentaries in living memory — especially for movie fans. It paints a compelling and enjoyable portrait of what may have been a milestone of 1970s filmmaking had it actually been made. That…

The Story: After a drunken one-night stand, a comic finds herself pregnant, faced with a suitor she doesn't want and an impending abortion. The Lowdown: Yes, it's been critically lauded, but personally, I found this abortion-themed rom-com mostly tedious, unfunny and cursed with an unlikable main character.

The Story: The Beatles perform a televised concert, have various adventures and nearly lose Ringo in the process. The Lowdown: Here we have one of the greatest — and arguably most important — films of the 1960s getting a two-day (Saturday and Sunday) re-issue in honor of its 50th anniversary. Oh, it's not like A…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society's annual birthday salute to British filmmaker Ken Russell (1927-2011) reaches back to Russell's first shot at international fame, Billion Dollar Brain (1967), the third film in Michael Caine's Harry Palmer (the "thinking man's James Bond") series. Caine had been impressed by Russell's TV work and had him hired for…

The Story: Before taking her final vows as a nun, a novice is sent out into the world to meet her only relative and learn about her past. The Lowdown: Strong, beautifully shot character drama that seems to be being taken for more than it is because of topics it touches on. Definitely good, but…

The Story: A pair of outsiders — 13-year-old girls — decide to start a punk rock group in 1982 Sweden. That they have no clue how to play music is only part of the problem. The Lowdown: A slight but charming and winning little movie that beautifully taps into the essence of early adolescence without…

The Story: Two groups of friends head to Vegas for a wedding — and bachelor and bachelorette parties. The Lowdown: A meandering, overstuffed rom-com that is innocuous at best, but force-feeds its points and is often too shrill and aimless to work.

In Brief: Jean Renoir's 1931 satirical comedy Boudu Saved from Drowning is perhaps the great filmmaker's first true masterpiece. Its story of what happens when a well-meaning bookseller rescues an indolent and ungrateful tramp, Boudu (played by the great Michel Simon), from drowning himself in the Seine is a simple one. But it leaves plenty…

The Story: Standard showbiz biopic on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The Lowdown: If you're wild about the music of Frankie Valli, this probably passes muster, but it's also a sloppy, cliché-ridden mess of a movie that never breaks free of its biopic-basic approach.

In Brief: So far as I'm concerned, Dario Argento disciple Michel Soavi made the absolute best Italian horror film of all time with 1994's Cemetery Man. This story of a cemetery — presided over by Rupert Everett (who tends to leave the film off his résumé) — where the dead (at least some of them)…

In Brief: It seems that Robert Altman and Bob Balaban got together and decided that Altman's multicharacter ensemble approach with its overlapping dialogue was just right for one of those house-party-murder mysteries — and they were right. Actually, they were more than right, since the resulting film, Gosford Park, was more than a classic mystery.…

The Story: Officers Schmidt and Jenko head undercover again, this time at college. The Lowdown: Not as fresh as the original, the movie’s more interesting as a parody of Hollywood franchises and a critique of gay panic in buddy cop flicks, but doesn’t have much going for it as a comedy.

In Brief: Michael Curtiz returned the horror genre with Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which was only natural since the previous year's Doctor X  had been the film that had put the horror genre on the map at Warner Bros. Again, Curtiz was working in two-strip Technicolor, with the same stars -- Lionel Atwill…

The Story: The tale of a young immigrant woman forced into a life of prostitution as the only means to make her way in the New World and get her tubercular sister off Ellis Island. The Lowdown: Richly melodramatic and beautifully detailed fable on the myth of the American dream as experienced early in the…

The Story: New adventures and new challenges for Viking boy Hiccup and his trained dragon, Toothless. The Lowdown: Not as fresh or funny as its 2010 predecessor – and with a curious lack of focus in its first half – but with a bang-up second half, much visual beauty and a surprising emotional resonance.