Movie Reviews

The Story: Before taking her final vows as a nun, a novice is sent out into the world to meet her only relative and learn about her past. The Lowdown: Strong, beautifully shot character drama that seems to be being taken for more than it is because of topics it touches on. Definitely good, but…

The Story: A pair of outsiders — 13-year-old girls — decide to start a punk rock group in 1982 Sweden. That they have no clue how to play music is only part of the problem. The Lowdown: A slight but charming and winning little movie that beautifully taps into the essence of early adolescence without…

The Story: Two groups of friends head to Vegas for a wedding — and bachelor and bachelorette parties. The Lowdown: A meandering, overstuffed rom-com that is innocuous at best, but force-feeds its points and is often too shrill and aimless to work.

In Brief: Jean Renoir's 1931 satirical comedy Boudu Saved from Drowning is perhaps the great filmmaker's first true masterpiece. Its story of what happens when a well-meaning bookseller rescues an indolent and ungrateful tramp, Boudu (played by the great Michel Simon), from drowning himself in the Seine is a simple one. But it leaves plenty…

The Story: Standard showbiz biopic on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The Lowdown: If you're wild about the music of Frankie Valli, this probably passes muster, but it's also a sloppy, cliché-ridden mess of a movie that never breaks free of its biopic-basic approach.

In Brief: So far as I'm concerned, Dario Argento disciple Michel Soavi made the absolute best Italian horror film of all time with 1994's Cemetery Man. This story of a cemetery — presided over by Rupert Everett (who tends to leave the film off his résumé) — where the dead (at least some of them)…

In Brief: It seems that Robert Altman and Bob Balaban got together and decided that Altman's multicharacter ensemble approach with its overlapping dialogue was just right for one of those house-party-murder mysteries — and they were right. Actually, they were more than right, since the resulting film, Gosford Park, was more than a classic mystery.…

The Story: Officers Schmidt and Jenko head undercover again, this time at college. The Lowdown: Not as fresh as the original, the movie’s more interesting as a parody of Hollywood franchises and a critique of gay panic in buddy cop flicks, but doesn’t have much going for it as a comedy.

In Brief: Michael Curtiz returned the horror genre with Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which was only natural since the previous year's Doctor X  had been the film that had put the horror genre on the map at Warner Bros. Again, Curtiz was working in two-strip Technicolor, with the same stars -- Lionel Atwill…

The Story: The tale of a young immigrant woman forced into a life of prostitution as the only means to make her way in the New World and get her tubercular sister off Ellis Island. The Lowdown: Richly melodramatic and beautifully detailed fable on the myth of the American dream as experienced early in the…

The Story: New adventures and new challenges for Viking boy Hiccup and his trained dragon, Toothless. The Lowdown: Not as fresh or funny as its 2010 predecessor – and with a curious lack of focus in its first half – but with a bang-up second half, much visual beauty and a surprising emotional resonance.

In Brief: Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction masterpiece about social upheaval in a fantastic city of the future. Sure, it's melodramatic -- after all, its Lang, whose heart belonged to pulp fiction -- but it's also a visual spectacle like no other. One of the most influential films of all time -- and still one…

The Story: In post-apocalyptic Australia, a taciturn loner goes to great lengths – including murder and mayhem – to recover a stolen car. The Lowdown: An alternately violent and tedious road movie of the post-apocalyptic variety that remains watchable thanks to some odd touches and an interesting performance from Robert Pattinson.

The Story: Four short documentaries about the perils of coal ash ponds. The Lowdown: The four short films being presented at 7 p.m. on Thu., June 19 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville (admission is free) are fairly straightforward activist documentaries that serve as a basic introduction to the important issue of coal ash…

In Brief: As Louis Malle movies go, Atlantic City (1980) qualifies as almost action-packed. It's also one of his most accessible and one of those late-in-the-day examples of the era when the line between art movies and the mainstream was less obvious than it would soon become. It's a remarkably congenial tale – with dashes of…

In Brief: British comedian Will Hay – little known in the U.S. – stars in Convict 99, one of his best films. As is usually the case, he plays a lazy, incompetent and not particularly honest English schoolmaster, only here he's mistaken for an Australian expert on prison reforms and given the job of warden…

In Brief: This 1994 Australian comedy-drama was more than a surprise hit. It also introduced the world to Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce, who starred as a pair of flamboyant drag queens, along with Terence Stamp as a transsexual. This is the tale of their trek into the outback via the bus of the title.…

The Story: A functional alcoholic literature teacher and a physically-impaired art teacher lock horns over which is more powerful -- words or pictures -- while becoming increasingly involved with each other personally. The Lowdown: A contrived screenplay is trumped by star power, directorial skill and witty dialogue. Flawed, yes, but very enjoyable and satisfying. Check…

In Brief: After fleeing Nazi Germany, Fritz Lang stopped in France and made this 1934 version of Ferenc Molnar's Liliom for Fox's European branch. The results are uneven, but fascinating, and provide us with our introduction to Charles Boyer. Part of the problem with the whole thing stems from the inescapable fact that Molnar's play…

In Brief: The ultimate cult item in the Coen Brothers' filmography, the impossibly convoluted The Big Lebowski (1998) was hardly a hit when it first appeared. Roger Ebert gave it a mildly positive review as a "genial shambling comedy," which still strikes me about right. However, time and taste have proved kind to the film,…

In Brief: Possibly the most beloved of all movies, Michael Curtiz's Casablanca (1942) is a combination of happy accidents, studio professionalism and plain dumb luck that came together to create the most perfect of all Hollywood studio movies, a perfect blend of studio system efficiency that still allowed for personal creativity. It has more quotable…