Movie Reviews

The Story: A recounting of Lyndon B. Johnson's rise to the presidency and the passing of the Civil Rights Act. The Lowdown: A perfectly OK movie that has notions of being something more meaningful, but without the talent behind the camera to accomplish such a thing.

The Story: The bad moms (and grandmoms) are back for another round of raucous mayhem, this time while learning how to create the perfect Christmas season for their families. The Lowdown: Every time a cash register rings, a studio executive gets his wings.

In Brief: This early Ingmar Bergman film is, as the title suggests, a circus story, but it's every inch a Bergman circus story, which is to say it's hardly a jolly time under the big top. Instead, Sawdust and Tinsel is a drama about sex, betrayal and humiliation. Although Bergman had been directing since 1946,…

In Brief: Jay Roach’s Trumbo is something of a miracle — in part because it’s from Jay Roach, a man whose directing career previously peaked with the Austin Powers movies. At the very least, there’s nothing in his filmography that suggests he’d be suitable for this. Toss in the fact that, on the surface, it bites…

In Brief: While Nanook of the North (1922) has been criticized for filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty's interference with his subjects and admitted staging of scenes, there can be no doubt that the film remains a cornerstone of the documentary genre. Much of what we take for granted in modern nature docs was relatively revolutionary at the time, and Flaherty's…

The Story: Octogenarian auteur Agnes Varda joins up-and-coming street artist JR on a road trip photographing distinctive faces throughout the French countryside. The Lowdown: A surprisingly moving and enjoyable documentary that only confirms my suspicion the Agnes Varda may be the most charming person on the planet.

The Story: A documentary about two people with Asperger's syndrome and how this affects their romantic relationship. The Lowdown: While a bit slow and meandering at times, the film has enough moments of true emotional weight to be a fascinating watch.

The Story: Three Iraq war veterans must readjust to life at home while learning to live with PTSD symptoms. The Lowdown: A thoughtful and knowing look at the psychological toll of war.

The Story: A murder plot and racial tensions undermine the superficial perfection of a rigidly planned 1950s suburban community.  The Lowdown: Clooney's take on a Coen script is more con than pro — file this one under false advertising.

The Story: Two detectives seek the help of forensic pathologists to investigate a new wave of murders that appear to be the handiwork of the original Jigsaw killer, thought to have died ten years earlier. The Lowdown: Fun and gruesome thought it may be, it's too little too late to save the now eight-deep Saw…

In Brief: Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965) is simply one of the damndest things you're ever likely to see. Godard took a popular noir-ish, pulp fiction detective, Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), and plopped him into a nightmarish sci-fi movie that seems to be part serious, part satire — or possibly one huge practical joke. Is Godard…

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…

In Brief: As far a cinematic oddities go, John Huston's Beat the Devil (1953) ranks among the strangest. Huston and star Humphrey Bogart were both apparently sick enough of the reputations they built on films like The Maltese Falcon and Treasure of the Sierra Madre that they chose to parody those films with this one, made up as they…

The Story: A team of elite firefighters risks it all to save lives and homes when they confront dangerous and unpredictable wildfires. The Lowdown: A fact-based tale of valor and sacrifice that has its heart in the right place even when its story beats are not.

The Story: The story of Mark Felt, the FBI agent who became the Watergate source Deep Throat. The Lowdown: What wants to be a tight political thriller is instead a dramatically inert tale filled with sketchy direction and a wasted cast.

The Story: After the global severe weather safety net malfunctions, threatening to disrupt nature and wipe out life on Earth, its chief engineer must board the space station control room to figure out what went wrong while investigating a larger conspiracy back on Earth. The Lowdown: Standard action movie plotting is watchable but forgettable, with…

The Story: Dysfunctional detective tracks a serial killer targeting mothers, only to find his own family in the killer's crosshairs. The Lowdown: Most films that serve up genre cliches this poorly rehashed at least have the decency to reheat them first.

The Story: Madea, Bam, Joe and Hattie are back to once again suck all the fun out of Halloween for young Tiffany and her friends. The Lowdown: To avoid fainting, keep repeating "It's only a movie. ...It's only a movie ..."

In Brief: Giallo master Dario Argento got off to a strong start with his 1970 feature debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. While it's nowhere near as accomplished as his later masterpieces, Bird's graphic violence and salacious subject matter would come to define the Italian horror films of the ensuing decades and set a template for the director's later…

In Brief: Universal's big, splashy Technicolor 1943 remake (made on the same set) of its 1925 hit Phantom of the Opera is often dismissed as "too much opera" and "too little Phantom." There's some truth in that, but it's still a good — and certainly good-looking — thriller with its fair share of jolts. In…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society wraps up its October horror slate with one last sadistic scare, and its timing couldn't be more appropriate. On Halloween, we'll be showing John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) — one of Carpenter's best films and one of the creepiest slasher movies of all time. It may not have been the first example…