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Articles

• Star Trek Into Darkness (PG-13)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 13 hours ago

  Genre: Science Fiction

  Director: J.J. Abrams (Star Trek)

  Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg

  The Story: Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew of the are sent on a mission to deal with a terrorist out to destroy Starfleet. The Lowdown: The plotting gets clunky and the action could be handled more effectively, but the characters — improved from the first film — keep this Star Trek entry mostly worth watching.

  6 comments

  78 views

• That's Entertainment (G)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 13 hours ago

  Genre: Compilation Documentary

  Director: Jack Haley, Jr.

  Starring: Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Liza Minnelli, Debbie Reynolds

  In Brief: Riding in on the last of the late 1960s/early 1970s nostalgia wave, That's Entertainment positioned itself as a documentary about the Hollywood musical. In truth, it was a two-hour commercial for MGM that presented one seriously skewed version of film history. That's not to say the film doesn't include some pretty impressive (and more than a few clunker) musical numbers — all culled from the MGM library — but it presents a very small fragment of the movie musical genre as if it was the whole story.

  4 comments

  33 views

• The Ladykillers (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 13 hours ago

  Genre: Comedy

  Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

  Starring: Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, J.K. Simmons, Marlon Wayans, Tzi Ma

  b>In Brief: The Coen Brothers' much misunderstood reimagining of the 1955 Ealing Studios Comedy of the same name finds Tom Hanks taking on the role originated by Alec Guinness — and making it his own. That's much the same thing the Coens did with the film — adhering to the basics of the story about a group of not-very-adept criminals using the home of an unsuspecting little old lady as their base of operations, while creating something completely fresh and original. It deserves another chance.

  4 comments

  47 views

• Godzilla Raids Again (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 13 hours ago

  Genre: Sci Fi

  Director: Motoyoshi Oda

  Starring: Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura

  In Brief: It's the first Godzilla sequel and, despite the fact that it was rushed to cash in on the original film so that it was in theaters within four months of Godzilla, it's still a reasonably good entry. It's also the last of the series that can be taken seriously — at least sort of seriously. As far as Japanese giant monster pictures are concerned, Godzilla Raids Again is something of an essential.

  0 comments

  32 views

• House of Good and Evil (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 13 hours ago

  Genre: Psychological Horror

  Director: David Mun

  Starring: Rachel Marie Lewis, Christian Oliver, Marietta March, Jordan Rhodes

  In Brief: This year's feature film winner of the Twin Rivers Media Festival marks the first time a horror movie has taken the prize. But David Mun's House of Good and Evil isn't your typical horror film. Rather, this is psychological horror about a couple trying to get their lives — and marriage — back on track in the wake of a tragedy by moving into an isolated old house in the country. What happens there isn't at all what they expect. Not everything in the films works — it goes on too long and it cheats a bit — but it's a well-acted, good-looking film that plays up atmosphere more than shocks.

  0 comments

  51 views

• Walk Don't Run (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 13 hours ago

  Genre: Comedy

  Director: Charles Walters (High Society)

  Starring: Cary Grant, Samantha Eggar, Jim Hutton, John Standing, Miiko Taka

  In Brief: Pack Memorial Library concludes its Cary Grant series with — appropriately enough — Grant's last film, Walk Don't Run. It's an agreeable enough remake of George Stevens' 1943 comedy The More the Merrier — moved from crowded wartime Washington to crowded Tokyo during the 1964 summer Olympics. The problem with it — from a box office standpoint — was that audiences wanted Cary Grant as a leading man, and what they got was Grant as a middle-aged businessman playing matchmaker for Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar. It just wasn't a popular idea, though it plays better now as a lesser tier Grant picture.

  0 comments

  30 views

• Cranky Hanke's Weekly Reeler May 22-28: Fast and Epic Hangover

  

  MOVIE

  Ken Hanke | 18 hours ago

  You know it's a pretty dire week when the thing I'm most looking forward to is Fast & Furious 6. (And you can imagine how much it pains me to type those words.) There's not even a single new art title to brighten the weekend (no, last Friday's ActionFest offering, Java Heat, going to a full run doesn't count) — merely three mainstream movies I find it hard to get jazzed about. These are the conditions that prevail.

  4 comments

  210 views

• Peeples (PG-13)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 8 days ago

  Genre: Comedy

  Director: Tina Gordon Chism

  Starring: Craig Robinson, Kerry Washington, David Alan Grier, S. Epatha Merkerson, Tyler James Williams

  The Story: A working-class guy meets his girlfriend's upper-class family. Predicability ensues. The Lowdown: An energetic cast can do little to elevate this by-the-numbers, flat comedy that plays like a sitcom.

  0 comments

  147 views

• Defiant Requiem (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 8 days ago

  Genre: Documentary

  Director: Doug Schultz

  Starring: Bebe Neuwirth (voice)

  In Brief: Since the closing film of the Asheville Film Festival was not available for review, these comments are merely drawn from the film's press notes: "Defiant Requiem tells the little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back...with art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin hold on to their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them. This creative rebellion reaches its peak when Schächter teaches a choir of 150 inmates one of the world's most difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi's 'Requiem,' re-imagined as a condemnation of the Nazis. The choir would ultimately confront the Nazis face to face."

  0 comments

  102 views

• Whoopee! (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 8 days ago

  Genre: Musical Comedy

  Director: Thornton Freeland (Flying Down to Rio)

  Starring: Eddie Cantor, Ethel Shutta, Paul Gregory, Eleanor Hunt, George Olsen and His Music

  In Brief: Like a wonderful time capsule, Whoopee! offers us a glimpse into a world that hasn't existed for a very long time: the 1920s Broadway theater. Almost no one who was a part of that world is still with us, and even those who might have seen such a show are seriously diminished in number. Yet at the flick of a switch, Whoopee! — starring the legendary Eddie Cantor and the should-be-legendary Ethel Shutta — has the power to take us back to that world in all its antique charm. Whatever it lacks in cinematic style, it more than makes up for in its energetic, appealing cast, bright tunes and sheer good-natured nonsense.

  0 comments

  89 views
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