• About us
• Advertising Info
• Subscriptions
• Contact us
• Feedback
• RSS feeds

LoginRegister

afs Articles

• Sullivan's Travels (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 05/08/2012

  Genre: Comedy Drama

  Director: Preston Sturges

  Starring: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Greig, Eric Blore

  In Brief: This classic Preston Sturges comedy is about a popular movie director (Joel McCrea) who wants to make a serious movie called O Brother, Where Art Thou? When the studio points out to him that he has no clue what poverty is like, he agrees -- and sets out on the road to discover it for himself. Funny, insightful and altogether a unique -- and uniquely American -- film.

  0 comments

  438 views

• Ed Wood (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 05/01/2012

  Genre: Fantasticated Biographical Drama

  Director: Tim Burton

  Starring: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones

  In Brief: More or less true -- but more true in spirit than fact -- this is the story of bargain-basement, cross-dressing filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Johnny Depp), centering on his strange relationship with down-on-his-luck horror icon Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau). A quirky, warm and loving tribute to one of cinema's most original characters. So what if he couldn't make a good movie? Possibly Tim Burton's best film. Landau won a well-deserved Oscar for his Bela Lugosi.

  13 comments

  847 views

• Hannah and Her Sisters (PG-13)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 04/24/2012

  Genre: Comedy-Drama

  Director: Woody Allen

  Starring: Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Diane Weist, Max von Sydow

  In Brief: Over the years, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) has come to be regarded in many quarters as Woody Allen's best movie. Is it? Maybe. Maybe not. One thing is certain, it's one of his most finely tuned ensemble pieces, with every character having a feeling of reality to them. It's rich, warm in its humanity, perceptive -- and very, very funny.

  5 comments

  686 views

• A Successful Calamity (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 04/17/2012

  Genre: Comedy

  Director: John G. Adolfi

  Starring: George Arliss, Mary Astor, Evelyn Knapp, Grant Mitchell, Hardie Albright, William Janney, David Torrence, Randolph Scott

  In Brief: The once highly acclaimed, now sadly forgotten actor George Arliss stars as a multimillionaire financial wizard who returns home after a year straightening out U.S. interests in Europe to find his family so involved in their own pursuits that they scarcely have time for him. Taking a tip from his butler, he decides to pretend to be financially ruined in order to reign them in. A charming little comedy that shows Arliss at his most appealing and humorous.

  0 comments

  217 views

• Asheville Film Society presents "Heart of Asheville" award and special benefit screening

  

  MOVIE

  Ken Hanke | 04/12/2012

  The Asheville Film Society honors Coach Eddie Biedenbach and the 2011-2012 UNC Asheville Men’s Basketball Team, and presents a benefit screening of the Sundance favorite The Other Dream Team to benefit Homeward Bound — with special guest appearance by the Rocketman.

  2 comments

  891 views

• Goin' to Town (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 04/10/2012

  Genre: Comedy

  Director: Alexander Hall (Little Miss Marker)

  Starring: Mae West, Paul Cavanagh, Gilbert Emery, Fred Kohler, Marjorie Gateson, Tito Coral, Ivan Lebedeff

  In Brief: Mae West's fifth movie suffers a bit from censorship woes thanks to the ever more powerful Breen Office, but a surprising amount of cheeky irreverence gets through in this tale of a suddenly wealthy dance-hall girl who decides to become a lady in order to snag a "proper" Englishman.

  0 comments

  405 views

• Barton Fink (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 04/03/2012

  Genre: Dark Comedy-Drama

  Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

  Starring: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub

  In Brief: John Turturro plays a thinly veiled version of playwright Clifford Odets in this 1991, Cannes-winning Coen Brothers film. The film is a very disturbing, but sometimes funny, look at an artist (maybe a little bit of a fake) descending into madness and self-absorption in old Hollywood.

  11 comments

  665 views

• How to Get Ahead in Advertising (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 03/27/2012

  Genre: Black Comedy Fantasy

  Director: Bruce Robinson

  Starring: Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward, Richard Wilson, Jacqueline Tong, John Shrapnel

  In Brief: Bruce Robinson's blistering -- and hysterically funny -- attack on both advertising and consumer culpability, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, is a fantasticated satire about an advertising whiz who suffers a crise de conscience that is followed by a bizarre physical change in the form of a talking boil that ultimately becomes a second head, which takes over -- creating a true monster of the advertising kind. Hard to describe without it sounding ridiculous, but the film is actually anything but, and the line between reality and fantasy is much more defined than is often assumed.

  19 comments

  650 views

• Charlie Chan at the Race Track (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 03/20/2012

  Genre: Mystery

  Director: H. Bruce Humberstone

  Starring: Warner Oland, Keye Luke, Helen Wood, Thomas Beck

  In Brief: The title kind of says it all -- the famous Chinese detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) solves a murder at the race track. (OK, the murder actually took place on ship.) Fast-paced, clever mystery with solid production values and the inimtable pairing of Oland and Keye Luke.

  0 comments

  533 views

• The Boys in the Band (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 03/13/2012

  Genre: Drama

  Director: William Friedkin

  Starring: Kenneth Nelson, Frederick Combs, Cliff Gorman, Leonard Frey

  In Brief: William Friedkin's landmark film version of Mart Crowley's landmark play that addressed homosexuality and the gay world in ways that had previously been considered strictly taboo. It all unfolds at a birthday party with an all-gay guest list that gets invaded by an unexpected -- presumably straight -- outsider. Yes, it's very much "of its time" and some of the attitudes are dated, but the film remains brilliant, brittle, bitchy -- and finally devastating.

  0 comments

  834 views