Movie Reviews

The Story: An American woman on the run from an abusive ex takes a lucrative nanny position at a creepy estate in the English countryside, only to find that her charge is an inanimate doll. Or is he? He probably is. The Lowdown: A solid psychological horror effort that works more than it doesn’t, even…

In Brief: Just why this is being run is a concern quite beyond my comprehension. Saying this is the best (read: least obnoxious) film in Nancy Meyers' oeuvre is one of those judgment calls on a par with picking the best Martin and Lewis picture. Any way you look at it you lose. One thing I…

In Brief: Long before Judd Apatow turned the 30-something-man-boy into a cottage industry (in fact, long before Apatow was even born), Federico Fellini made I Vitelloni (1953), which remains probably the best such look at emotionally stunted males. It's a film that has been all but overlooked because of the fame of Fellini's La Strada…

The Story: After the death of his wife, an aging Green Beret tries to help his estranged grandson escape a doomed engagement and to bed a girl a third of his age. Not necessarily in that order. The Lowdown: If you are easily offended, this film is likely to enrage you. If not, you might…

In Brief: To mark the passing of David Bowie, the Asheville Film Society is showing Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Despite the fact that this is every inch a Nicolas Roeg film, it is also a film that is unthinkable with anyone other than Bowie. The film is based on a…

In Brief: Roger Corman's Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) is a perfect — and perfectly enjoyable — example of the type of movie that was being churned out in the late 1950s. Surprisingly, it's also frequently stylish and has a remarkably well-written screenplay. Bear in mind, however, that we’re talking well-written within the context of movies about…

The Story: When aliens invade, it’s up to a group of plucky teens (naturally) to save the world. Or screw everything up drastically, apparently the writers decided to leave that plot thread dangling until the sequel. The Lowdown: I’m hoping there’s no sequel.

The Story:  Compilation of the five Oscar nominated live action short films for this year. The Lowdown: There's not an outright clinker in this set — though one comes close — and two (maybe three) of this year's nominees are exceptional.

The Story: A collection of this year's Oscar-nominated animated shorts. The Lowdown: Wildly uneven, and with only a couple of true standouts, but those two make up for much.

In Brief: Chances are you've never heard of this 2006 release. Then, it's even money that you'll look at the fact that it's from Milos Forman, and that it stars Javier Bardem, Natalie Portman and Stellan Skarsgård, and wonder why you've never heard of Goya's Ghosts. A couple of hours with the film will pretty…

The Story: An oddball polar bear sets out to save his Arctic home from gentrification. The Lowdown: Low-end computer animation showcases an even lower quality script that inexplicably conflates tourism with climate change, offering an even more incomprehensible solution: social media and impromptu dance parties.

The Story: A customer-service guru on a business trip meets a timid yet alluring woman in his hotel. The Lowdown: Simple in many ways (at least as far as plot goes) but deep and resounding in its examination of the search for human connection.

In Brief: Prior to Walkabout (1971), Nicolas Roeg had co-directed (with Donald Cammell) only one film, the astonishing Performance, so a good deal was riding on the cinematographer-turned-filmmaker’s second outing. Could Roeg pull off a solo film? Indeed, he could. In so doing, he established himself as a filmmaker with a unique, if not always completely penetrable,…

In Brief: A legacy from that brief period when Paramount was determined to make Tallulah Bankhead into a movie star (they gave up after this one), Marion Gering's Devil and the Deep was also meant to introduce the movie world to Charles Laughton. Back in 1932, it wasn't especially effective at either, but today it plays as deliciously overheated…

The Story: The supposedly true story of the attack on the embassy in Beghazi. The Lowdown: Michael Bay blows up stuff, unleashes massive firepower and concludes not much of anything in this jingoistic mess of a movie.

The Story: Two odd couple cops (and soon to be brothers-in-law) head to Miami to take down a drug kingpin. The Lowdown: A noisy, aimless and cliched rehash of the first in the series.

In Brief: Sisters (1973) is by no means the first Brian De Palma film, though it might fairly be called the first De Palma film as we know them. The theme is, in part, voyeurism — so we're right at home from the onset. The tone is set as much by Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960) as it…

The Story:  A girl searches for her twin sister in Japan's notorious "Suicide Forest." The Lowdown: Whether or not the Aokigahara Forest prompts people to commit suicide, chances are good that this first release of the new year will put you to sleep.

In Brief: The second of Bela Lugosi's Monogram Nine, Spooks Run Wild, mixes horror with comedy as it finds Lugosi going up against producer Sam Katzman's other major property of the era, The East Side Kids, a slightly cleaned-up version of The Dead End Kids from Sidney Kingsley's play (and film) Dead End. In other words, these…

In Brief: George Stevens' post-WWII films tend to be an acquired taste which I've never really managed to acquire. They're too heavy-handed, too self-conscious, too self-important and, invariably, too long. The first time I saw Shane (1953) was at a kiddie matinee in 1963 or thereabouts. (Our local theater ran a lot of old Paramount and…

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 of Bing…