2007 Asheville Film Festival Judges

Harry Anderson

The tall, genial street hustler turned magician gained fame as the star of a popular long-running sitcom, “Night Court” (NBC, 1984-92) as oddball judge Harry Stone. National TV audiences first encountered Anderson performing his unconventional magic on “Saturday Night Live”. Regardless of the role, his cleverness and charm remain a constant.

Most certainly Harry made his name with the success of “Night Court”. He became a TV staple, appearing in numerous guest spots (“Tonight Show”, “Tales From the Crypt”), Disney TV productions (a 1988 NBC remake of “The Absent-Minded Professor”), assorted specials, TV movies and miniseries including “Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs” (CBS, 1988), “Stephen King’s ‘It’” (ABC, 1990) and “Harvey” (CBS, 1995).

Following a personal hiatus, Harry signed for another stint as sitcom star, playing Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry on “Dave’s World (CBS, 1993-97). Both “Night Court” and “Dave’s World” have experienced healthy after-lives in syndication, as has Harry’s comedy work on SNL, HBO et al, keeping him constantly onscreen whether he likes it or not.

Throughout all, Harry has continued to develop his live stage performance as “Harry the Hat” and has fascinated and delighted audiences in casinos, theatres, night clubs and corporate events around the country.

Robby Benson

Best known for starring in films such as Ice Castles, Ode to Billy Joe, and in his own screenplay for the Warner Bros. basketball classic, One On One, and to a new generation as the voice of Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the only animated feature ever to receive a Best Picture Academy Award nomination, Robby Benson is also a three time Golden Globe nominated actor and star of projects with Paul Newman, Jack Lemmon, Burt Reynolds, Gene Hackman, George Burns, Maximillan Schnell, and Rod Steiger.

His four decade entertainment resume covers a wide range of categories including director of film and over 100 television episodes/pilots, producer of films and television series, Broadway star, film soundtrack composer, and the recipient of RIAA Gold Records for songwriting.

As a theatrical musical composer and lyricist, Robby’s musical “Open Heart” debuted in NYC in 2004 and Samuel French, Inc., published “Open Heart” in November 2006. As a sought after public speaker he is represented by HarperCollins Speakers Bureau.  Teaching for two decades at Universities around the country, Robby spent the 2006-2007 academic year as Professor of Film in NYU’s famed Tisch School of the Arts in the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, where he received the honor of being nominated for New York University’s Distinguished Teaching Award for his service.

Felicia Feaster

Felicia Feaster was born in Jimmy Stewart’s hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania.  She received her B.A. in film studies from the University of Florida and her M.A. in film studies from Emory University.  Her master’s thesis on exploitation film became a book, Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film co-authored with fellow lowbrow connoisseur, husband and filmmaker Bret Wood (Hell’s Highway, Psychopathia Sexualis).  She is the staff art and film critic for Atlanta’s alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing.  Her writing has appeared in Elle, New York Press, Atlanta magazine, Sculpture, Art in America, Artnews, Playboy online and Art Papers.  She has curated exhibitions for the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and TEW Galleries in Atlanta. She has received multiple Green Eyeshade Awards for criticism and feature reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Ken Hanke

Mountain Xpress film critic Ken Hanke is a self-confessed monument to a life misspent watching movies. He traces his interest in film back to 1963 and the horror picture publication Famous Monsters of Filmland (which is perhaps why he’s a little more sympathetic to horror movies than most reviewers). It took nearly 20 years for a friend to talk him into actually writing about movies himself—resulting in the book Ken Russell’s Films (Scarecrow Press, 1984). He followed this with articles for Films in Review, Scarlet Street (for which he’s also an associate editor), Video Watchdog, Alternative Cinema, etc. He’s also written the books Charlie Chan at the Movies (McFarland Publishing, 1989; reissued in paperback this year), A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series (Garland Publishing, 1991) and Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker (Renaissance Books, 1999), along with contributing essays to such books as The Fearmakers (St. Martin’s Press, 1994) and the deliciously titled The Sleaze Merchants (St, Martin’s Press, 1995). In between reviewing about 160 movies a year—and dodging brickbats hurled by occasionally dissenting readers—he’s working on Hollywood’s Other Horrors: a Studio Tour and a full-scale biography of Ken Russell, Nymphomaniacs, Nuns and Messiahs.

Don Mancini

Don Mancini created the Child’s Play franchise, the phenomenally successful series of horror movies featuring “Chucky,” the killer doll. Mancini wrote the screenplay for all five films in the series, and made his directorial debut with the latest, 2004’s Seed of Chucky. Among his other credits is the Fitting Punishment episode of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt. His screenplays in development include two adventure fantasies, Atlas and The Dog Who Cried Wolf, for legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis. Mancini was born in Boston, Mass., and grew up in Richmond, Va. After two years as an English major at Columbia University, he took a year off from school to work on the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow. Resuming his education, he transferred to UCLA, where he was accepted in the school’s prestigious film program, and where he conceived the screenplay for the original Child’s Play in 1988. Currently, Mancini is developing a TV series, Kill Switch, which he created for Touchstone Television and ABC.

Larry Toppman

Lawrence Toppman has been movie critic for The Charlotte Observer since 1987. Before that, he spent 10 years as a professional journalist writing about sports, live theater, classical music and pop culture. He has also spent 25 seasons in the chorus of Opera Carolina, singing in more than 60 productions, and has appeared as an extra in three movies. One of those was “Atlantic City”; it’s probably a coincidence that the film was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1981.

Sam Watson

Film columnist and reporter (Johnson City Press) Sam Watson has been writing about the movies for 25 years. He credits his love for motion pictures to a childhood spent watching old serials, shorts and features in a Saturday morning club for employees’ children at the factory where his father worked in Kingsport, Tenn. He honed his film criticism skills while earning an English/journalism degree at Tennessee Technological University, where he also studied film lit and history. He has particular interest in the life and films of actor Montgomery Clift. Since joining the Johnson City Press in 1988, Watson has received numerous awards for articles about education and his film columns.