Movie Reviews

The Story: A father struggles to protect his family in the wake of a mysterious plague that seems to have decimated humanity. The Lowdown: A thinking man's survivalist thriller that, despite its B-movie genre trappings, is more Cormac McCarthy than Roger Corman.

The Story: Dav Pilkey's book series gets its first big-screen adaptation as a pair of elementary school friends hypnotize their principal, turning him into their very own superhero, Captain Underpants. The Lowdown: This Dreamworks Animation production is mercifully aimed only at the kids in the audience and revels in its own universe of scatological stupidity.

The Story: A princess from a race of mythical warrior women must kill the god of war to bring an end to World War I. The Lowdown: The long-awaited advent of the female-driven superhero movie is finally here, and it's the best thing to come out of the DCU thus far — but a heavily padded running…

In Brief: There's a good reason that Quentin Tarantino has continually referenced this 1975 karate classic throughout his career — in spite of (or perhaps, because of) its trash-cinema tropes and exploitationally gratuitous gore, The Street Fighter is a pretty damned entertaining film. Few screen presences have ever rivaled the demented dynamism of Shin'ichi "Sonny" Chiba, and The Street Fighter is…

The Story: A biographical documentary that delves into the life of possibly the greatest jazz saxophonist in history. The Lowdown: You don't have to be a John Coltrane fan to enjoy this film — but if you aren't, you most likely will be before it's over.

The Story: Winston Churchill struggles with grave misgiving in the days prior to the Allied invasion of France in World War II. The Lowdown: A character study that finds its footing in an outstanding performance from Brian Cox but falls short in the catharsis department.

The Story: As a middle-aged married couple gears up to admit they've each cheated on the other, they unexpectedly find their romantic and familial priorities shifting. The Lowdown: The new comedic drama struggles to say something new about love and marriage, never really finding its voice.

The Story: Captain Jack Sparrow's at it again, this time with new sidekicks in tow for another round of swashbuckling inanity about ghosts or something. The Lowdown: Dead men tell no tales, and neither should directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg and the army of writers responsible for wasting 2 1/2 hours of my life.

The Story: A group of lifeguards must stop a drug trafficker from taking over their beach. The Lowdown: A dumb, pointless and needlessly macho attempt at both an action comedy and a reboot of the old TV show of the same name.

In Brief: Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949) is  that rarest of movies in that it’s a filmmaker favorite (I’ve yet to meet the director who didn’t treasure it), a film buff’s delight and immediately accessible to the more casual moviegoer all at once. Why? Because it works on so many levels simultaneously and is positively breathless in…

In Brief: No, this musical version of The Philadelphia Story is not a great film by any means. Charles Walters' direction is at best workmanlike, at worst pedestrian. It has the air of canned theater in many scenes, along with that typical 1950s overlit look of most MGM musicals. But it does combine the talents…

In Brief: Following two earlier adaptations of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade source novel, John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941) proves that occasionally the third time is the charm. A cornerstone of Film Noir, the film that catapulted Humphrey Bogart to stardom, the first pairing of Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre (out of nine!), the list of groundbreaking firsts goes on…

In Brief: An early Dario Argento film (his second), The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) is more mystery than outright horror — and its PG (originally GP) rating should clue you in on the fact that it doesn't really qualify as a giallo. In fact, it's closer to a German krimi than anything. But that…

The Story: An intergalactic colonization mission is derailed when the crew intercepts a human transmission from an uncharted planet, and what they find at its source is predictably lethal. The Lowdown: A film thematically rooted in questions of creation that bears precious little creativity of its own.

The Story: The troubled life, both personally and artistically, of poet Emily Dickinson. The Lowdown: Told in the driest terms possible, A Quiet Passion is a slog through a swamp of mediocre performances and listless drama.

The Story: A minor player in New York's Jewish political and financial scene ingratiates himself to a man who becomes the prime minister of Israel, but their friendship becomes central to a significant international incident. The Lowdown: Neither Norman — the film nor its eponymous protagonist — are as clever as they think they are.

In Brief:  While not generally as well known as films like The 400 Blows, François Truffaut's loose adaptation of a true story of a feral child struggling to reintegrate into eighteenth century French society after growing up in the woods bears all the hallmarks of the director's best works. Themes of challenging adolescence and the social isolation…

In Brief: Douglas Fairbanks' final silent film, a follow-up to his highly successful The Three Musketeers (1921), is everything you'd expect — a fun, light-hearted adventure film with plenty of swashbuckling action and a solid performance from one of the silent cinema's biggest stars. Frequent Fairbanks collaborator Allan Dwan, a ridiculously prolific director with 125 films to his credit, knew…

In Brief: In honor of the return of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, the Asheville Film Society will be celebrating with the writer/director's first feature, Eraserhead. The film had a difficult birth, with principal photography taking years and audience reactions icy prior to its resurrection as a midnight movie on the cult arthouse circuit. A surrealist masterpiece exploring…

The Story: The life of activist and writer Jane Jacobs and her battles against urban planner Robert Moses. The Lowdown: On the surface, a fairly basic documentary that raises lots of interesting ideas on the purpose of cities and how we approach the places we live in.

The Story: Two U.S. Soldiers in the closing days of the Iraq War face an uphill battle for survival when they're pinned down by a wily sniper. The Lowdown: A study in cinematic minimalism that trades violence for suspense, resulting in a truly unique war movie that feels more like a horror film.