Movie Reviews

In Brief: For their Father's Day selection , the Hendersonville Film Society has settled on the ... interesting, but defensible, choice of the 2013 movie Saving Mr. Banks. In order to enjoy this movie, it’s necessary to realize only that the principal characters truly did exist. Walt Disney did indeed woo P.L. Travers for years to…

In Brief: Often spoken of as “the best Alfred Hithcock movie Hitchcock never made,” the truth is that Stanley Donen’s Charade is much better as sophisticated, sexy entertainment than anything Hitchcock himself was making in the 1960s. In fact, by 1963, Hitch would never make anything that was this much pure fun again. This is old-style Hollywood moviemaking, complete…

In Brief: The Lady Vanishes (1938) is not only one of Hitchcock’s best and most completely entertaining films, but it’s the film that launched Hitch on his Hollywood career. Hollywood had taken notice of him with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and The 39 Steps (1935), but it was The Lady Vanishes that sealed the deal. It’s not hard…

The Story: Fleeing a dying homeworld, an army of Orcs led by a corrupt mage invade the peaceful realm of Azeroth and seek to conquer its human (and Elf, and Dwarf) inhabitants. The Lowdown: More an instruction manual than a film, Warcraft is likely to disappoint and frustrate both long-time fans of the games and…

The Story: After resurfacing, magician troupe The Four Horseman must battle wits with a tech genius. The Lowdown: A needlessly convoluted and nonsensical sequel that’s occasionally entertaining, mostly in unintentional ways.

The Story: A film centered on the relationship between Thomas Wolfe and his editor, Maxwell Perkins. The Lowdown: Highly polished, poetically minded biographical film that captures something of the essence of the author-editor relationship and the genius of both of its subjects. Few films have such a literary aura as this.

In Brief: William Cameron Menzies’ Invaders from Mars has the unusual distinction of being one of the silliest and most threadbare 1950s science fiction movies and, at the same time, being one of the best. And it’s quite possibly one of maybe two or three that are actually effectively scary. The film was responsible for thousands — if…

The Story: A young New York academic decides to have a baby by artificial insemination and finds love, though not with the donor. The Lowdown: A little film of considerable charm and some degree of depth, the real joy of Maggie's Plan lies in the role it affords Greta Gerwig.

In Brief: Almost startlingly good — and just barely rescued from oblivion — film noir from generally overlooked director Norman Foster. Co-writing the independently produced Woman on the Run (1950) with Alan Campbell, Foster came up with an unusually intelligent (and suspenseful without being in the least graphic) noir that made excellent use of its…

The Story: When his second solo album flops, an egotistical, idiot pop star tries to regain his following with disastrous results. The Lowdown: High on my list for worst movie of the year. Unfunny, charmless, noisy and tedious.

The Story: An almost completely fictionalized account of an historic character who insisted on singing opera, despite having a terrible voice. The Lowdown: A real-life story (which gets its own film later this year) is turned into a tragi-comic film of startling beauty and complexity. Unless you're utterly allergic to subtitles, this is a must-see.

In Brief: Hank Bones' second film is a little more cinematically adventurous than The Quitters (2014), but the content is also a good deal less sophisticated. That's more of a comment than a complaint, because nothing about Pearl's Jam suggests it was ever intended to be anything other than a fun little movie made by…

In Brief: If Bela Lugosi was the king of 1940s B horror, then surely George Zucco was the king of the C’s. Zucco’s claim to stardom rests on the six-picture contract (only five were made) he had with Producers Releasing Corp., or PRC Pictures as it’s generally known. Zucco's first starring role was in the gloriously goofy…

In Brief: A pitch-perfect little movie from Aki Kaurismäki, Le Havre (2001) feels much more simple and old-fashioned than it is upon examination. Sure, the story of a reasonably shiftless French shoeshine man who befriends an illegal immigrant black boy is aimed at playing on our sentimentality, but it does so with piercingly deadpan wit…

The Story: A recently paralyzed man and his shy caretaker find themselves falling for one another. The Lowdown: A cliché-filled romance of the tear-jerking variety that goes on too long and does nothing new, but is barely sort of saved by a solid cast and a degree of complexity.

In Brief: It’s rare that Agatha Christie’s books have been given a break on the movie screen, but René Clair’s 1945 filming of And Then There Were None definitely did right by Dame Agatha. For that matter, it also did right by its splendid roster of great character actors, and it gave French filmmaker Clair one…

The Story: The Turtles return to stop Shredder and his extradimensional ally Krang from taking over the Earth, or something to that effect — the script isn’t particularly clear on the details. The Lowdown: Yet another nostalgia-driven waste of time and money from Michael Bay’s cronies.

The Story: The X-Men return to confront the world’s oldest mutant super-villain. The Lowdown: While the Biblical apocalypse was about the end of times, this Apocalypse feels as eternal (and interminable) as its title character.

In Brief: When De-Lovely came out in late summer 2004, I compared it to Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love (1975) in the sense of it being another grand folly inspired by the music of Cole Porter. That remains true, though Bogdanovich fares better in that he wasn't making a biopic and has more style…

The Story: A recovering rock star and her lover find their blissful isolation disturbed by very unexpected guests. The Lowdown: Maybe not great, but this trashy, lurid look at the lives of the rich and famous — that turns into a kind of thriller — is compelling viewing with a top-notch cast and great stylist…

The Story: Life in a modern (circa 1975) luxury high-rise as a vision of a microcosm dystopia. The Lowdown: Brutal, darkly funny, nightmarish, disturbing. Maybe going in knowing that about High-Rise will fortify you for the experience — at least you've been warned. One of the most startlingly original films of the year.