Movie Reviews

The Story: A poor but educated young man falls for a girl from his village, only to have her taken from him by a rich playboy who may not be what he appears. The Lowdown: A scintillating slow-burn thriller that barely misses genuine greatness.

The Story: A thousand years in the future, an orphan seeks to avenge the death of her mother while mad scientists in roaming, rolling cities piece together the history of an ancient society. The Lowdown: One of the biggest box office flops of the year is also everything Ready Player One should have been and…

The Story: Troubled painter Vincent Van Gogh leads a turbulent life in the French countryside before his untimely demise. The Lowdown: A broad-strokes look at the painter's life that gambles and fails with a point-of-view gimmick that undermines the work of a strong cast.

The Story: An nonagenarian discovers that he's been duped into running drugs for a cartel. The Lowdown: A morally and intellectually flat effort from Clint Eastwood that seems rushed and pasted together.

The Story: After surviving a horrific school shooting, a young woman transforms herself into one of the biggest pop stars in the world and prepares to debut her new sci-fi-themed concept album. The Lowdown: Vox Sucks.

In Brief: François Truffaut's first feature, The 400 Blows (1959), struck a blow of its own as the first of the New Wave films — movies that came as a reaction to what was perceived as the stodginess of classical French filmmaking (and filmmaking around the world for that matter). It was a movement that would change…

The Story: A border guard with an unusual talent for literally sniffing out people's secrets encounters a strange man who forces her to question her identity. The Lowdown: An often grotesque little film that bites off more than it can chew thematically, but one that bears a strange sense of metaphorical resonance and sly capacity to challenge assumptions.

The Story: A biographical sketch of esteemed opera singer Maria Callas, told entirely through her own perspective. The Lowdown: Reverential but seldom revelatory, director Tom Volf's doting doc showcases Callas' prodigious talent while skimping on context.

The Story: A teen in 1960 Montana is forced into maturity far too soon when his father loses his job, leaving the boy and his mother to an uncertain fate. The Lowdown: Uncompromising emotional realism bolstered by a strong central cast lends Paul Dano's directorial debut a level of dramatic weight uncommon in small films about big themes.

The Story: When an ex-cop with PTSD takes on the night shift at the local morgue, she gets more than she bargained for in the form of a demonically possessed corpse. The Lowdown: A trash exploitation film with no grace in its possession. But hey, at least it's not a Christmas movie.

The Story: A black, homosexual pianist from New York hires a racist Italian-American enforcer to safeguard him on a concert tour through the ’60s segregation-era South. The Lowdown: A surprisingly affective drama from comedic director Peter Farrelly that, despite its best intentions, still manages to elide much of the ugliness of its subject matter.

The Story: When a player breaks the steering wheel on the "Sugar Rush" arcade cabinet, video game bffs Wreck-it Ralph and Vanellope von Schweetz set out through a newly installed Wi-Fi router to find a replacement on the internet. The Lowdown: Eye candy that's roughly as good for you as its mouth-candy equivalent.

The Story: Newly minted heavyweight boxing champ Adonis Creed accepts a grudge match against the son of the man who beat his father to death in the ring, which ends disastrously until it very predictably doesn't. The Lowdown: A tepid sequel to an interesting reboot that sets a franchise on course to repeat the sins of its fathers.

The Story: Robin of Loxley returns from the Crusades to find his home destroyed and his wife gone, which sends him down the road of becoming the legendary thief Robin Hood. The Lowdown: An occasionally curious and ambitious take on Robin Hood that's unfortunately silly and overblown.

The Story: Gary Hart's bid for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination is undone by a sex scandal. The Lowdown: Not an exposé,  political statement or even really a biopic, it's a film with nothing to say about a man who didn't want to be known.

In Brief: Bollywood-star-turned-director Aamir Khan and writer Amole Gupte may not exactly be household names in Western North Carolina, and while Khan's debut behind the camera for Like Stars on Earth (2007) may not be likely to remedy that state of affairs, there's still plenty about this teacher/student musical that should appeal to local audiences. A…

The Story: A young man is entered into gay conversion therapy by his religious parents. The Lowdown: A morally nuanced and gently humane film with an expert cast.

The Story: When their husbands rob the wrong people and wind up dead, their widows bands together to pull off a daring heist. The Lowdown: A compellingly gritty thriller that tweaks genre conventions in some interesting ways, even as it finds itself weighed down by extraneous plot threads.

The Story: Globetrotting war correspondent Marie Colvin risks her life, time and again, to report on the world's most dangerous conflicts. The Lowdown: An uneven film about an extraordinary subject, elevated by a dynamic performance from star Rosamund Pike.

The Story: A couple become foster parents to a trio of siblings, broadening their understanding of what it takes to be a family. The Lowdown: A kindhearted but thoughtless film that contains some troubling metaphors and doubles as a huge PR stunt for National CASA, an organization that would have been better served by simply throwing…

The Story: Newt Scamander returns, confronted by a new threat to the Wizarding World in the form of Hitlerian magus Gellert Grindelwald. The Lowdown: A tepid sequel to an unnecessary prequel that accomplishes nothing more than keeping the Harry Potter money press running for another cycle.