Movie Reviews

The Story: Fact-based story of Iranian-born, Canada-based journalist Maziar Bahari’s imprisonment and torture by the government of Iran. The Lowdown: The hook here is that this is the writing-directing debut of Jon Stewart. The results are a mixed bag, with moments of greatness that aren’t enough to make the film itself great. It is, however,…

In Brief: For their final Budget Big Screen film of 2014 (the free Tuesday and Thursday showings will continue through the winter and the BBS series will return in the spring), the Asheville Film Society is running Charles Chaplin’s first talkie, The Great Dictator (1940). Chaplin held out against talking pictures longer than anyone —…

In Brief: Fritz Lang’s American films tend to be pretty hit or miss, but this adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel that he made for Paramount is definitely in the hit category. Lang and screenwriter Seton I. Miller have stripped the story of its deeper implications — like a lot of Greene’s work, the novel is drenched in…

In Brief: Joyeux Noël (2005) is a pretty good movie with something like a great one buried inside it. The trick is getting to that movie. The premise comes from an actual historical event — here, greatly enlarged and romanticized — in WWI where warring soldiers in “no man’s land” called a very unofficial truce…

In Brief: Fiend Without a Face (1958) is mostly known for its ambulatory — and occasionally leaping — “brain monsters” — and with good reason. This English-made — but set in Canada to make it seem more American and more exportable to the States — sci-fi horror thriller is one of the minor gems of 1950s B…

The Story: A boy, his inflatable robot and his friends track down the person who stole his invention and caused the death of his brother. The Lowdown: Wonderful to look at, blessed with one terrific character and boasting a good deal of honest sentimentality, Big Hero 6 is brought down a notch by a well-worn…

The Story: A teen with dreams of becoming a great jazz drummer must survive his maniacal music teacher. The Lowdown: While it’s little more than your standard coming-of-age/chase-your-dreams type of drama (with considerably more swearing and jazz), the film is elevated with a perfect, expert climax that alone is worth admission.

The Story: The only hope for a dying Earth is the discovery of an inhabitable planet that may — or may not — lie on the other side of a wormhole. The Lowdown: A deeply flawed film that tries to be something more than it can manage, but it’s still an entertaining work of considerable…

In Brief: Lina Wertmüller was a major force in film for a time, and her work hardly merits the near obscurity it has today. Her sense of comedy might be a little broad, sometimes clunky and a little too predicated on the charm of her usual leading man, Giancarlo Giannini. But her films have drive,…

The Story: A washed-up actor known for having played a superhero tries to reinvent and validate himself by writing, producing, directing and starring in a Broadway play. The Lowdown: Full-blown filmmaking written in all capital letters. Birdman is both a stylistic and dramatic tour de force — the kind of nonstop brilliant movie you hope…

In Brief: Like Ridley’s best-known film (he’s only made three) The Reflecting Skin (1990), this is very clearly a horror movie — some of it is quite graphic — but it’s more of a very perverse fairy tale than a traditional horror movie. Put briefly, it’s the story of a young man (Sturgess) with a large, disfiguring,…

In Brief: How you feel about The Red Pony (1949) is going to depend a great deal on how you feel about the John Steinbeck story and the Aaron Copland music. Not being a fan of either — and just having a basic aversion to “life lesson” stories that deal with the death of a…

In Brief: I am quite certain that after watching The Turin Horse (2011) I swore I would never get suckered into sitting through another film by the Hungarian master of molasses-slow miserablism, Béla Tarr. Well, somehow I went back on that — partly out of curiosity to see what Mr. Tarr would do with color…

In Brief: Generally reviled at the time of its release, Joseph McGrath’s The Magic Christian (1969) has seen its appreciation skyrocket in recent years — deservedly so. What was once dismissed as tasteless and messy (never mind that these were deliberate) has now come to be seen as a brilliantly anarchic satire and perhaps the…

The Story: A 28-year-old woman puts her increasingly unbearable life on hold for a week to go hang out with some new high-school-age friends. The Lowdown: A thoroughly charming — even quite lovely — romantic comedy that addresses the topic of arrested development from a female perspective. Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz and Sam Rockwell…

The Story: A woman who loses her memory every time she sleeps tries to uncover the truth behind the accident that caused it. The Lowdown: A technically proficient film with a superb cast can’t overcome a flimsy, forgettable plot.

The Story: A cheap sociopathic criminal finds his calling providing dubiously legal “news” footage to LA TV stations. The Lowdown: Reasonably compelling — if unwholesome — portrait of a sociopath that falters in its attempt to be a satirical statement on modern media.

The Story: An ensemble look at race relations — in primarily comedic terms — at a largely white Ivy League college. The Lowdown: Fresh, witty, moving, edgy film that overcomes most of its first-time-filmmaker problems by the force of its characters and the drive of the film.

The Story: A man suspected of murdering his girlfriend awakes to find that he’s sprouted Satanic-looking horns that give him strange powers. The Lowdown: Wildly inventive, genre-spanning film that is by turns horrific, satirical and deeply tragic. It’s easily the best Halloween offering out there, but be prepared for something different.

The Story: Playing around with a Ouija board unleashes tepid horror. The Lowdown: In its favor, Ouija is pretty professional looking. Everything else, however, is on the dull side.

In Brief: David Lynch’s first foray into the world of — more or less — mainstream film, The Elephant Man (1980), is still his most accessible work and probably his most all-around popular. At the same time, its relative normalcy only goes so far. Oh, sure, it garnered a whopping eight Oscar nominations, but you’ll…