Movie Reviews

The Story: A kid finds a laser gun. The Lowdown: Neither the kid nor the laser gun ends up being all that important (or necessary).

In Brief: One of the undisputed classics of modern international film, 8 1/2 (its title literally meaning that it was Federico Fellini's eight-and-one-halfth film — seven full features and a couple short segments of omnibus films precede it). It is the movie in which the greatest of all Italian filmmakers moved completely away from traditional realism…

In Brief: Reasonably accurate account (with a modicum of subtext that's so slight as to be almost nonexistent) of the early years of composer Robert Schumann (Herbert Groenemeyer) and Clara Wieck (Nasstassja Kinski). Spring Symphony (1983) is the sort of biopic that gives biopics a bad name. It runs no risks and is so intent…

In Brief: Have you ever wondered what would happen if the husband-and-wife screenwriting team that penned the scripts for American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Howard the Duck decided to co-write, produce and direct a movie about cannibalistic ghoul vampires inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and George Romero? Well they did, and…

The Story: A look at the life, work and untimely death of transgressive fashion designer Alexander McQueen. The Lowdown: A deeply personal documentary with a stunning visual aesthetic that will leave even deliberate anti-fashionistas moved and affected.

The Story: A bored, frustrated housewife discovers that she has an unusual talent for jigsaw puzzles. The Lowdown: A quiet, human movie about desire and fulfillment, full of good performances and fully formed characters.

The Story: A young girl is sent to a Christian conversion camp that seeks to rid her of her same-sex attraction. The Lowdown: A compelling story hamstrung by poor execution and a tendency to sugarcoat its deeply disturbing subject.

The Story: A robot dog soldier escapes its government facility and bonds with two teen outcasts.  The Lowdown: A silly but enjoyable movie that would have felt right at home in the VHS era.

The Story: In a world in which puppets and humans coexist, a grizzled private investigator teams up with his ex-partner to solve a series of violent murders. The Lowdown: Almost unfathomably dumb, undeniably offensive and more fun than it has any right to be.

In Brief: Few things could seem so incongruous as writer/director/star Nadine Labaki's 2008 feature debut Caramel, not because of its relatively standard plot surrounding a group of women who patronize a beauty parlor, but because this light romantic dramedy is set in previously war-torn Beirut. Labaki avoids dealing with the religious and political turmoil that engulfed much of Lebanon…

In Brief: The Hendersonville Film Society celebrates National Classical Music Month with a September run of classical-music-themed films. This week the society is bringing back Edgar G. Ulmer’s Carnegie Hall (1947), about which Xpress movie critic Ken Hanke wrote a few years ago: “The silly story — one of those pop music vs. classical music tales — is…

The Story: An exploration of parents with children who are vastly different from themselves. The Lowdown: An emotionally mature, complex and tender look at family.  

The Story:  Somewhere in Europe, circa 18,000 B.C., a young hunter-gatherer must find his way home with the help of an unlikely friend — the first wolf to enter into a symbiotic relationship with humans. The Lowdown: This loosely structured story of the domestication of Canis lupus is a visually spectacular adventure tale that, while clearly geared toward younger…

The Story: A jaded lawyer uncovers a web of conflicting stories and motivations as he tries to keep a convicted murderer — who has confessed to a third killing — off death row. The Lowdown: A decent film were it to come from an average director, but a disappointing miss for acclaimed Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda.

The Story: An Asian-American economics professor meets her boyfriend's family only to discover that he has hidden their extravagant wealth from her, leading to conflict with his disapproving mother and competitors vying for his hand. The Lowdown: A film that makes great strides toward mainstream cinematic inclusivity for ethnically diverse casts and crews while rehashing a tired rom-com…

The Story: An off-the-books intelligence mission goes wrong when the team, headed by Mark Wahlberg, realizes it doesn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. The Lowdown: Berg's and Wahlberg's worship of the military and hatred of nerds continues.

In Brief: Julian Schnabel’s third film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2008), continues his apparent fixation with artists who died in their prime. His first films, Basquiat (1996) and Before Night Falls (2000), were about the graffiti artist-turned-neo-expressionist painter Jean Michel Basquiat (dead of a drug overdose at the age of 27) and Cuban poet and…

In Brief:  An improbable subject becomes a magnificently enjoyable and moving film experience that needs to be seen in director Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010), the story of Britain's King George VI and his attempts — with the help of an unorthodox therapist — to overcome his speech impediment to become the wartime voice of his…

The Story: A black detective cons his way into the good graces of the KKK with the help of a white frontman, dealing a devastating blow to the white supremacist terror organization. The Lowdown: Spike Lee's best film in years is potentially his most cogent commentary on contemporary race relations, striking both a delicate balance between comedy and drama…

The Story: A retired rescue diver runs afoul of a giant prehistoric shark. The Lowdown: The Meh.

The Story: A number of people are brought together by their mutual love of dogs. The Lowdown: Well-meaning, yet fatally overlong, boundlessly cutesy and full of goofy humor that makes for a film that never meshes as a whole piece.