Movie Reviews

In Brief: Touted as "A modern drama from real life," The Man Who Played God (1932) is actually a remake of George Arliss' 1922 silent version (now lost) of  a 1914 play. It is, however, one of that great actor's best films. It's also the movie where Arliss brought Bette Davis to Warner Bros. — at the suggestion…

In Brief: The film version of Bewitched (2005) is a bullet I had dodged until now. (This is not the sort of movie I am apt to seek out unless I have to.) The truth is — the movie is not good, but neither is it (in a strictly relative sense) bad. It has a…

In Brief: Though signed by both Antony Darnborough and Terence Fisher (best known of the Hammer horror directors), So Long at the Fair (1950) is clearly the work of Fisher. (Darnborough only directed two movies — both with Fisher.) It has much the same visual flair as Fisher's horror pictures — and one very stylish…

The Story: A withdrawn young girl with asthma is sent to an isolated coastal town for her health. There she makes a strange, rather ethereal friend. The Lowdown: Lovingly handmade animated fantasy about the loneliness of childhood. Masterful and beautiful with moments of pure magic, and ultimately quite moving.

In Brief: Almost exactly four years ago the AFS ran Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books (1991). The showing started out with nearly 80 people. By the end, it was down to about 20 brave souls. I don't know if it was the fact that it's hard to follow, the fact that it boasts what the MPAA termed "pervasive…

The Story: A big, bad genetically engineered dinosaur runs wild at the Jurassic World theme park. The Lowdown: Better written, better directed and better acted than any film about rampaging dinosaurs has any right to be.

The Story: A trio of misfit teens ends up with a bag of drugs, a gun and a big problem. The Lowdown: An unexpected delight — a completely refreshing take on the coming-of-age comedy that succeeds by hewing closely to the subgenre's tropes while deftly turning them upside down and thwarting expectations at almost every turn.

In Brief: Widely considered — at least by those who consider such things — to be Dario Argento's best film, Deep Red (1975) is perhaps more of a gory (except that people all seem to bleed red paint) giallo than an outright horror film. One thing is certain — it makes more sense (in strictly relative terms) than the…

In Brief: In the 1980s, the select films that Alfred Hitchcock had carefully retained the rights to were re-issued to theaters. The oldest of these, Rope (1948), had always been considered something of a failure — an experiment that didn't quite come off and that flopped on its original release. The surprise was that it…

The Story: Solid prequel to the series that tells a story taking place before the first film. The Lowdown: Incredible though it may seem Insidious: Chapter 3 manages to overcome the triple threat of a new director, being a prequel, and being the third film in a series. This really is a pretty terrific addition to…

The Story: A big-time Hollywood star — with his best friends at his side — struggles to get money together to finish his unwieldy directorial debut. The Lowdown: A crass, idiotic and pointlessly uninteresting male fantasy that feels every bit like its TV origins.

In Brief: It took 35 years to bring this virtually unstoppable (it lasted 41 years) Off-Broadway show to the screen and another five years for it to be released (in a recut version by Francis Ford Coppola) — at which time it bombed. Well, Michael Ritchie's original cut of The Fantasticks is now available —…

The Story: A 70-year-old widow starts to re-evaluate her life and take some chances. The Lowdown: Refreshingly adult, sweet-tempered and rather special little romantic comedy-drama focusing on a generally underserved age group — and presenting that group in a new light. And you needn't be a part of that group to enjoy it.

The Story: When her field-agent partner is killed, a desk-jockey becomes a field agent herself to get revenge and finish her partner's last assignment. The Lowdown: While it's an improvement over the standard Melissa McCarthy vehicle — at least she plays a character rather than a caricature — this latest is too long and too…

In Brief: The Belly of an Architect (1987) is probably the closest thing there is to a straightforward movie (in a wholly relative sense) from Peter Greenaway. That may account for the fact that I've never particularly cared for it. Give me the full Greenaway treatment (preferably with a Michael Nyman score) or give me…

In Brief: With Twentieth Century (1934), director Howard Hawks — with a lot of help from writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur and stars John Barrymore and Carole Lombard — invented something new: the screwball comedy. It was new, in that the romantic leads were the central comedians and behaved just as outrageously as the wildest…

In Brief: After fulfilling his contract at Universal with two time-marking projects (Outside the Law and The Iron Man) and one landmark film (Dracula), director Tod Browning returned to his home studio, MGM. There, he’d made his mark with a string of slightly macabre — often circus- or carnival-themed — movies that frequently starred Lon Chaney. Browning’s…

In Brief: Incredible though it may seem, The Uninvited was Hollywood's first serious attempt at a genuine ghost story — and a rare example of an A-picture horror film (even if the horror is more spooky than horrific). Earlier attempts at ghost stories were either comedic in intent, or had some — usually preposterous —…

The Story: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is on hand for a smackdown with a couple of earthquakes. The Lowdown: Exactly what you expect — massive computerized disaster, improbable heroics and 10 cents worth of dialogue. Efficient for what it is.

In Brief: In Chocolat (2001), Lasse Hallström walks a fine line with material that could easily have slipped into the realm of the too precious, but it never falters as it tells a predictable story of a woman (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter (Victoire Thivisol) who come to a small French town in 1959 and…

In Brief: Chris Bower's visually striking and undeniably colorful documentary on the Mardi Gras Indians and their culture, We Won't Bow Down, has its Asheville premiere this Thursday at the Fine Arts Theatre. Though Bower never uses the term, the film is in the cinema verite style, which is to say that the film and…