Movie Reviews

The Story: A mother spends a harrowing Christmas Eve searching for her son after he unexpectedly returns home from a sober living facility. The Lowdown: A clumsy, meandering film that will test your patience long before it has a chance to break your heart.

The Story: A brilliant scientist brings his wife and children back to life by uploading their consciousnesses into new bodies. The Lowdown: If anyone out there is looking for a movie that combines I, Robot with Upstream Color, you just hit the jackpot.

In Brief: Only in the world of a Wim Wenders film would an angel express the desire to go home and read a Philip Marlowe mystery as one of the reasons he’d like to be human. But because that desire is expressed in a Wim Wenders film, it seems completely reasonable. And if that makes sense…

In Brief:  Do you like musicals? Do you like Hollywood? Do you like Hollywood musicals? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then director Robert Z. Leonard's Ziegfeld Girl (1941) may well be for you — all others need not apply. Its star-studded cast, featuring the likes of Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr and…

The Story: Six strangers are thrown together in a twisted take on the strip-mall staple of the escape room, only here the goal isn't team building but survival. The Lowdown: In the wake of bloated awards-season bookings, this creepy cheapie offers up a welcome dose of low-brow escapism.

In Brief: If you’ve never seen a Luis Buñuel film, it’s high time you did, and this 1972 Oscar winner about six middle-class people and their interrupted efforts to have a meal together is a good place to start. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is more accessible than some of Buñuel’s work and might just…

In Brief: When The Young in Heart (1938) showed up on the list of January titles for the Hendersonville Film Society, I not only realized I hadn’t seen it, I’d never heard of it — something that seemed unlikely from that year and with that cast. So I was interested to see it and fill in…

The Story: Dick Cheney goes from drunken college dropout to master manipulator as he shrewdly usurps the authority of the most powerful position in the free world. The Lowdown:  A divisive film for a divided nation.

The Story: A grocery store manager lands her dream job by faking her resume and credentials. The Lowdown: A typical romantic comedy, only with all the cringe-worthy and annoying elements removed.

The Story: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson bungle their way through an investigation as they attempt to prevent the assassination of Queen Victoria. The Lowdown: Yes, it's insipid to the point of self-parody — but it's also not as bad as advertised.

In Brief: Manon of the Spring (1986) is the sequel — or more properly, second part — of Jean de Florette (1986). In essence, this film tells the rest of the story — what happens after Jean de Florette (Gérard Depardieu) dies. The film takes place 10 years later with Jean’s daughter Manon (Emmanuelle Béart) fully grown, living more…

In Brief: Well, it does boast two of the greatest — possibly the greatest — actresses of 1960s and ’70s British film in Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson, but let's be honest, this is a thoroughly respectable British prestige picture from the folks who brought you the even more respectable Anne of a Thousand Days…

The Story: A poor family of miscreants ekes out a modest living through petty theft until their adoption of an abused girl throws their precarious living arrangement into peril. The Lowdown: A remarkable film that's warm but not cloying, political but not polemical — a testament to writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda's sense of subtlety, and one of the best films…

The Story: In this prequel to the Transformers series, a teenage loner befriends the wounded, stranded Autobot scout Bumblebee in 1987 California. The Lowdown: The smartest, sweetest coming-of-age story of the year that also happens to feature giant alien robots.

The Story: Mary Stuart returns home from France to reclaim her throne in Scotland, but Elizabeth I of England has other ideas. The Lowdown: An occasionally compelling overview of a fascinating chapter in history, undermined by poor pacing even as it's buoyed by strong lead performances.

The Story: Michael and Jane Banks, now fully grown, call on Mary Poppins to help rescue the family home along with the childhood innocence of the next generation of Bankses. Lowdown: Supercrapifragilisticexpialatrocious.

The Story: Half-human, half-Atlantean Arthur Curry must journey to Atlantis to oust his half brother from the throne and save the surface world from annihilation. The Lowdown: According to the dictionary: Wan (adj.) 1. Pallid; giving the impression of ill health. 2. Lacking in color or vitality. 3. Bearing the characteristics of an overpaid and uninspired director.

The Story: Robert Zemeckis' hyperstylized retelling of Marwencol, the true story of a traumatized artist coming to terms with the assault (and assailants) that changed his life. The Lowdown: An insulting and dehumanizing nightmare that doubles as a truly bizarre look into the director's own creative process.

In Brief: As a mere boy, I bumped into Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle on television — and didn’t like it. Many years later, I saw part of his Traffic — and didn’t like it. With that, I wrote off Tati’s work as something just not for me. And it was with that in mind that…

The Story: In the court of Queen Anne, a fallen lady climbs the ranks from scullery maid to royal consort through treachery, cunning and deceit. The Lowdown: In theory, I shouldn't love a hyperstylized two-hour catfight this much — but unless things change drastically in the next two weeks, it's likely to be my favorite film of the…

The Story: When the Kingpin tries to open a gateway between parallel realities, he inadvertently brings together multiple versions of Spider-Man, all determined to thwart his evil plan with the help of their newest colleague, Miles Morales. The Lowdown: The first Spider-Man movie that legitimately captures the feel of the comics is a blast, even if its…