Movie Reviews

The Story: Two single parents and their kids end up on the same African safari. The Lowdown: An unsurprisingly puerile and needlessly sentimental comedy from Adam Sandler.

The Story: A struggling sports agent tries to take two kids from India and turn them into baseball pitchers as a last ditch effort at becoming a success. The Lowdown: A generally harmless movie with a skewed emotional center and milquetoast plotting.

In Brief: Perhaps the ultimate cult movie, Richard Elfman's (Danny's big brother) Forbidden Zone (1980) is a clear-cut, love-it-or-hate-it proposition. It is irreverent, iconoclastic, deliberately politically incorrect and utterly self-indulgent. The film was essentially a showcase for the kind of thing the Elfmans had been doing onstage with The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.…

In Brief: Though his post-World War II French films are generally considered lesser works, the great René Clair — whose innovative early sound films brought French film into the talkie era — remained invariably interesting. On occasion, he even came close to recreating the magic of his early movies, perhaps never so much as with The…

The Story: Godzilla rises from the watery depths to do battle with new horrors. The Lowdown: It's solid and good looking, but it's also overlong and suffers from too many uninteresting humans and not enough monsters — plus, it lacks the crude power of the 1954 original.

In Brief: Emir Kusturica's Oscar-nominated When Father Was Away on Business (1985) is more than just a very good film. It's a look into a world and a country (Yugoslavia) that no longer exists. It also depicts a turbulent, and dangerous, period in Yugoslavia (the early 1950s) when Yugoslav president Tito had severed relations with…

In Brief: Good Night, and Good Luck marked George Clooney's second time as a director — and taken in connection with his first film, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) — it seemed to firmly establish Clooney as a major filmmaker. Then came Leatherheads (2008), The Ides of March (2011) and this year's The Monuments…

The Story: Fact-based story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a bi-racial woman raised as an upper class lady in late 1700s England. The Lowdown: Beautiful to look at, Belle is that rare thing — a costume drama of warmth, wit and humanity that isn't in the least dull or stuffy.

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society marks its fourth anniversary — as always — with a Coen Brothers movie (the AFS made its debut with the Coens' Blood Simple). This year it's Miller's Crossing (1990), the brothers' first full-blown masterpiece and still one of their very best works. The film is a mix of elements…

The Story: Dorothy returns to Oz to save its inhabitants from an evil court jester. The Lowdown: A chintzy, corny little animated movie with zero spark or inspiration that totally relies on the reputations of other movies.

The Story: Decades after the fact, a former World War II prisoner of war suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder faces up to his past. The Lowdown: The kind of adult, thoughtful and solid entertainment that is little seen these days, The Railway Man is first-rate filmmaking with terrific — and terrifically human — performances throughout.

The Story: When his no-account stepson is killed, a small-time crook has to come up with the money for the funeral. The Lowdown: A good cast elevates this uneven look into the lives of the inhabitants of a low-class neighborhood called God's Pocket. Grubby and darkly comic, it's a film that gets better as it…

The Story: The love story of two ancient lovers who happen to be vampires. The Lowdown: An unbelievably atmospheric and elegant film that is deeply suffused with both sadness and beauty. Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive belongs on your must-see list, even if you don't like horror movies.  

In Brief: Originally released in a cut version as Creepers, Dario Argento's Phenomena (1985) has the interesting distinction of being quite possibly the maestro's most spectacularly unhinged works. If you are at all familiar with Sgr. Argento's work, you'll realize what an accomplishment that is. Here we have 14-year-old Jennifer Connelly as a girl who…

The Story: A money-strapped man talks his best friend into becoming an expensive male prostitute — and positions himself as pimp. The Lowdown: Both very funny and surprisingly moving, Fading Gigolo scores bonus points for the inspired teaming of John Turturro and Woody Allen. It has at least one major problem, but that's easily overlooked…

The Story: It's all-out war between a young married couple with a baby and the noisy, wild frat boys who move in next door. The Lowdown: Supposedly riotous and theoretically shocking R-rated tomfoolery is just more of the same from the raunchy comedy style of filmmaking. Your mileage may vary, judging by the box office…

In Brief: This 1983 film version of The Pirates of Penzance certainly has its admirers — some of them quite adamant — but I confess I am not one of them. It's too broad, too stagey and too much like a TV special, but if you want to see Kevin Kline's undeniably energetic turn as…

In Brief: It wasn't that long ago that Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin — then known mostly as Potemkin — was in the top five of nearly all lists of the greatest films ever made. While the 1925 Soviet film seems to have been downgraded in recent years, it remains an essential of cinematic literacy, one of the…

The Story: Documentary about the local fight to get the old CTS manufacturing plant cleaned up. The issue is ongoing — two decades after the problem was reported to the Environmental Protection Agency. The Lowdown: Strong, sharply focused, straightforward activist documentary that allows its anger to be simply conveyed by amassing the facts and letting…

The Wedge Brewery starts their 2014 outdoor movie series — this year almost entirely devoted to the Coen Brothers — on Saturday, May 10 with the Coens'  immensely popular Raising Arizona starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter. Whatever else the film is or isn't, Raising Arizona boasts a frantic pace and nonstop cinematic invention from…

The Story: The travels of disparate pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, a famous spiritual path in Spain. The Lowdown: A gentle, well-meaning documentary that will appeal to those interested in the Camino but few others.