Movie Reviews

The Story: Madea, Bam, Joe and Hattie are back to once again suck all the fun out of Halloween for young Tiffany and her friends. The Lowdown: To avoid fainting, keep repeating "It's only a movie. ...It's only a movie ..."

In Brief: Giallo master Dario Argento got off to a strong start with his 1970 feature debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. While it's nowhere near as accomplished as his later masterpieces, Bird's graphic violence and salacious subject matter would come to define the Italian horror films of the ensuing decades and set a template for the director's later…

In Brief: Universal's big, splashy Technicolor 1943 remake (made on the same set) of its 1925 hit Phantom of the Opera is often dismissed as "too much opera" and "too little Phantom." There's some truth in that, but it's still a good — and certainly good-looking — thriller with its fair share of jolts. In…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society wraps up its October horror slate with one last sadistic scare, and its timing couldn't be more appropriate. On Halloween, we'll be showing John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) — one of Carpenter's best films and one of the creepiest slasher movies of all time. It may not have been the first example…

The Story: A young man tries to deliver a letter from the late Vincent van Gogh and uncovers mysterious circumstances surrounding his alleged suicide in the process. The Lowdown: A remarkable and utterly unique approach to van Gogh and his art that fully immerses the audience and does its subject justice in a way that few films…

The Story: An aging man with a life of simple routine contemplates his mortality. The Lowdown: A beautifully understated film that provides a fitting coda to the long life and illustrious career of the late Harry Dean Stanton.

The Story: Sorority sister Tree finds herself reliving her birthday on a loop, with each iteration ending in her death by a mystery assailant, and so must solve her own murder to break the cycle. The Lowdown: Turns out being a shameless Groundhog Day rip-off is not the worst thing that can happen to your…

The Story: After the death of his daughter in a bombing, an unassuming Chinese immigrant with a past goes searching for the men responsible. The Lowdown: With only flashes of vintage Jackie Chan, what should at the very least be a fun little action picture is instead an overly serious and drab movie that's far too…

The Story: A psychology professor's romantic and sexual proclivities lead to a long-term polyamorous relationship that results in the creation of the most iconic feminist character in the history of comic books. The Lowdown: A biopic that fails to live up to the intriguing true story that inspired it.

The Story: In 1941, young Thurgood Marshall travels to Connecticut on behalf of the NAACP to defend Joseph Spell, a chauffeur accused of raping the wife of his employer. The Lowdown: Marshall deserves better than Marshall.

In Brief: In Brief: François Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973) is not only a great movie about movies, but it’s fascinating as an example of how international cinema truly is. By this I mean that while we think of foreign film as a separate world, Day for Night is clearly the kind of movie that could…

In Brief: One of director William Wellman's best early pictures — and certainly one of his most socially conscious in its early representation of rape culture — Beggars of Life (1928) is a powerful film pulled from a pulpy story that could have amounted to little more than a vagrant-centric exploitation flick in lesser hands. Louise Brooks stars as…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society keeps rolling out historic horror hits this week with a slight change of pace: Fritz Lang's exceptional silent fantasy/horror hybrid, Destiny (1921). Lang's breakout picture is also one of his most underrated, despite being massively influential — it's the movie that prompted Luis Buñuel to pick up a camera, its impact on…

The Story: Blade runner K, tasked with retiring a new breed of replicants on the streets of a dystopian Los Angeles, stumbles upon a decades-old conspiracy that throws everything he knows about his work and himself into doubt. The Lowdown: A visual masterpiece that supersedes its predecessor in almost every conceivable way.

The Story: A thorough recounting of the lengthy and storied career of activist Dolores Huerta, a pioneering advocate for the rights of Latino migrant workers. The Lowdown: A thought provoking documentary with a fascinating subject that is very nearly undermined by its rote direction and aggressive pacing.

The Story: Queen Victoria befriends an Indian Muslim who teaches her Urdu and the Quaran, much to the consternation of her "racialist" royal retinue. The Lowdown: A charming film that lacks the depth of social commentary its subject could (and should) have borne, but scores points with a stellar turn from Judi Dench.

The Story: After a plane crash, a doctor and a photographer find themselves stranded in a snowy, mountainous wilderness and must figure out how to survive.The Lowdown: A fairly mediocre survival picture that slowly devolves into exaggerated schmaltz.

The Story: Three pony princesses must stop the evil Storm King from taking over Ponyville. The Lowdown: A dream of dark and troubling things.

In Brief: It's not often that films from the Checkoslovak New Wave are screened, and that's a genuine shame because they represent some of the most original filmmaking coming out of Europe in the '60s. Karel Zeman's antiwar satire A Jester's Tale (1964) is no exception — its blend of live action and animation is unlike anything else…

In Brief: The 1970s — especially the latter half — seemed to be the time when the world at large was shocked to discover that Australia made movies, too. This was in large part due to two very different filmmakers, Peter Weir and George Miller, but the interest they generated also led to films like this…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society's month of Halloween horrors marches on with the first of two Budget Big Screen presentations — William Friedkin's seminal classic of supernatural religious horror, The Exorcist (1973). It's nearly impossible to overstate the impact of this film on the horror movie landscape, and its influence continues to echo through the genre…