Movie Reviews

When the Asheville Film Society ran Leos Carax's third film, The Lovers on the Bridge (1991), one viewer called it the worst movie he'd ever seen. I feel certain there was a bit of hyperbole there, especially since no one else in a fairly packed house complained, but Carax is definitely not for everyone. His second film, Mauvais…

The Story: A stoner private eye in 1970 L.A. becomes embroiled in a twisty and dangerous mystery. The Lowdown: A determinedly complex and intentionally messy work that's rich in strange characters, offbeat comedy and a deeply human element underlying it all. It won't be to everyone's liking, but this is a great film.

The Story: More supernatural shenanigans from the resident specter of Eel Marsh House.  The Lowdown: Good looking, but uninvolving, unscary and wholly undistinguished.

Despite tacking on a backstory, Universal Pictures' 1940 stab at Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables clocks in at a tidy 90 minutes. (I have often wished all of Hawthorne's books had a similar economy.) It's also a reasonable approximation of the story, handled with a fair amount of style by refugee German…

Pure cheese sci-fi horror from good ol' Sam Katzman. In fact, it may be the lowest budget of all his 1950s thrillers, but Creature with the Atom Brain (1955) is so very 1950s — right down Richard Denning as the pipe-smoking egghead scientist who puts together the solution — that it's a delight. Possibly, its delights are…