Movie Reviews

The Story: A charming stickup man continues his crime spree long after retirement age.  The Lowdown:  Robert Redford's allegedly final film doesn't quite send him out with a bang, but it's not exactly a whimper either.

The Story: Two brothers set out on a mission to torture and assassinate a chemist with a secret. The Lowdown: A particularly odd film, as internally incongruous as its juxtaposition of a title would suggest.

The Story: A young black girl faces a difficult decision when she witnesses the killing of her unarmed friend at the hands of a police officer. The Lowdown: A well-intentioned and timely film, the effect of which is diminished by a predictable plot that talks down to its intended audience.

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society returns to Black Cloud with a very special event just in time for Halloween — a screening of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) with a live musical accompaniment from local musician Transformation Rite, who has composed a score specifically for the occasion. Dreyer's film, based very loosely on Bram Stoker's Dracula and J. Sheridan Le…

In Brief: Make no mistake, the four-star rating given to Blue Is the Warmest Color is both guarded and calculated. I can see that this is a film of some merit and that it’s seriously intended. Technically, it is well-made and Léa Seydoux (the girl Owen Wilson ended up with in Midnight in Paris) is very…

In Brief: As much as the idea of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas reteaming for a buddy comedy might appeal to the film historian in me, Tough Guys (1986) really isn't a film that should have been introduced into the cinematic record. It's not that it's necessarily bad, it's just not as good as it could have or…

In Brief:  As Mark Twain may or may not have said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Given the resurgence of fascism across the globe, and considering the strained and divisive political climate here in the States, The Asheville Film Society has partnered with the Fine Arts Theatre to lighten things up a bit…

The Story: Rock climber Alex Honnold achieves the unthinkable by scaling the 3,000-foot El Capitan with no ropes. The Lowdown: A visually stunning and almost unbearably tense documentary that chronicles one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of rock climbing.

The Story: The early life and career of French writer Colette and her marriage to the author Willy. The Lowdown: What could've been a simple biopic instead becomes a tale of art, authorship, love, sexuality and gender, with a wonderful cast and a thoughtful approach.

The Lowdown: Dames Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright sit down for tea and gossip. The Lowdown: A fun little doc that gives viewers some quality time with a quartet of charming ladies, even if it's too slight to be considered essential cinema.

The Story: A group of strangers converges on a motel hiding almost as many secrets as its guests. The Lowdown: It's a Royale with plenty of cheese, but I wouldn't call it a bad time.

The Story: Neil Armstrong's triumphant journey to the moon is marred by tragic loss and personal struggles. The Lowdown: A significantly overlong biopic that lacks a clear thematic stance or well-established emotional heart.

The Story: A haunted ventriloquist dummy turns a small town into a "living Halloween" by bringing to life Halloween costumes and decorations. The Lowdown: A sometimes inspired but overall chaotic grab-bag of kiddie horror imagery that will entertain, if not exactly scare, its target audience.

In Brief: There's censorship, and then there's the Iranian government's treatment of director Jafar Panahi. Despite a 20-year ban on making films or writing screenplays, Panahi has continued to work and rack up festival awards, smuggling his films out of the country in defiance of all efforts to silence him. Winner of the 2015 Berlin International…

In Brief: No, this is not the Gaslight you're thinking of — this is the 1940 original that you've probably never seen, starring Diana Wynyard and Anton Walbrook in the roles Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer would make famous four years later for MGM. Directed by Thorold Dickinson, this version is definitely not as polished as George Cukor's 1944…

The Story: A retrospective examination of the life and work of artist Yayoi Kusama. The Lowdown: A thorough and compelling doc that probes the inner workings and cultural context of an artistic visionary.

The Story: A down-on-his-luck journalist finds an unlikely path to redemption when an alien life-form invades his body, giving him superpowers and a hunger for human flesh. The Lowdown: A silly, mindless comic book movie that drops the pretension and revels in its own ridiculousness.

The Story: A rock star with addiction problems falls in love with a talented singer-songwriter after an unlikely meet-cute and fosters her career, only to see their relationship unravel as her success eclipses his own. The Lowdown: A classic story made utterly redundant and irrelevant by deficient writing and direction — but partially redeemed by a strong…

In Brief: Yes, Fritz Lang’s first sound film, M (1931), has a few awkward moments, in which Lang hasn’t quite mastered the new medium, but this old warhorse of art cinema works more than it doesn’t and still registers as a compelling work by one of the undisputed masters of film. And calling it an old…

In Brief: The so-called portmanteau film — a collection of stories in a single vessel — is by its very nature a tricky proposition. Even the best of them — Julien Duvivier’s Tales of Manhattan (1942), the multidirector Dead of Night (1945) — rise and fall on the quality of the individual episodes. Duvivier’s film, for…

The Story: Two veterinary students pull off an impossible museum heist but find themselves unprepared for what comes next. The Lowdown: A remarkably stylish and visually inventive crime thriller that breaks new ground in an old genre.