| Title |
Excerpt |
Author |
Date |
| 2012 |
No, it’s not good. Don’t be silly. It cost $260 million—none of which seems to have been spent on the screenplay—and it’s either dumber than your proverbial box of rocks, or it’s the savviest put-on imaginable. I’d kind of like to believe the latter, but the collected works of director/co-writer… |
Ken Hanke |
11/18/09 |
| Pirate Radio |
I approached Richard Curtis’ Pirate Radio with serious trepidation. Here was a film that came out in the U.K. and Australia as an early-summer release called The Boat That Rocked. It drew mixed reviews and then languished over the summer, only to re-emerge stateside as Pirate Radio and cut by… |
Ken Hanke |
11/18/09 |
| An Education |
“I’m going to Paris, and I’m going to smoke and wear black and listen to Jacques Brel,” announces schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) early on in Lone Scherfig’s An Education—a funny, touching, often extremely wise coming-of-age story set in the drab middle-class world of 1961 England, where such ideas as the… |
Ken Hanke |
11/18/09 |
| The Raven |
After three more or less straight—or at least non-comedic—attempts at bringing Edgar Allan Poe’s work to the screen, Roger Corman opted to turn Poe’s poem “The Raven” into a comic horror/fantasy, with the aid of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and a very young—and very awkward—Jack Nicholson, in his… |
Ken Hanke |
11/18/09 |
| Black Rain |
Shohei Imamura’s uncompromising look at the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, Black Rain (1989), is an uncomfortable film to say the least—though not always for the reasons one might suspect. Oh, there’s no denying that Imamura’s depiction of the actual bombing of the city—and its immediate aftermath—is powerful. Indeed,… |
Ken Hanke |
11/18/09 |
| The 2009 Asheville Film Festival in Hindsight |
There’s no denying that this year’s Asheville Film Festival was low-key and scaled back. There was no special guest, fewer narrative feature entries and at least one notable miscalculation. That said, the 2009 festival did have more than its share of high points—not the least of which was a very… |
Ken Hanke |
11/18/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler Nov. 18-23: Beefy boys-a-poppin’ and a serious man |
In theaters From a pop-culture standpoint, this is the week when, like a plague of locusts, The Twilight Saga: New Moon arrives on way too many screens. What is there to say? The two most vapid “stars” of our age—Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson—are back. (I’m convinced I would really… |
Ken Hanke |
11/17/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Screening Room: Five from the vault |
I don’t know about anyone else, but in my experience Direct TV and rain go together not at all. So it came as no surprise to me—following a stormy evening—when my attempts to record A. Edward Sutherland’s Murders in the Zoo (1933) off TCM resulted in a good deal of… |
Ken Hanke |
11/13/09 |
| The Fourth Kind |
The first line in The Fourth Kind has Milla Jovovich calling herself an “actress,” so we know right away the film is lying. OK, calling herself an actress may not quite be lying, but it’s certainly either hyperbole or wishful thinking—something Ms. Jovovich proceeds to prove for the next 96… |
Ken Hanke |
11/11/09 |
| A Christmas Carol |
It’s not by any means accidental that the opening title reads, “Disney’s A Christmas Carol,” since whatever else this latest take on Charles Dickens’ story is, it’s Disney-fied to the teeth. Nearly everything about the film is bigger, glossier, broader and more desperate to make an impression than it needs… |
Ken Hanke |
11/11/09 |
| The Men Who Stare at Goats |
Any film that combines the talents of George Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges, features the Small Faces’ “Itchykoo Park” on the sound track, and dares to call itself The Men Who Stare at Goats has to be onto something. And Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare at Goats is.… |
Ken Hanke |
11/11/09 |
| Chocolat |
Since it played here on its original release at Christmas 2000, Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat has cropped back up on local screens at least twice—maybe more. Well, it’s back again, because the Hendersonville Film Society is doing an “A to Z” theme this month and wanted something that began with a… |
Ken Hanke |
11/11/09 |
| Awara |
When I sat down to watch Raj Kapoor’s Awara (1951) I groaned at the prospect that rather than the 168-minute British print, it might turn out to be the 193-minute Indian version—168 minutes later, I’m almost sorry it wasn’t the 193-minute print. Wow—what a show! It’s definitely not like anything… |
Ken Hanke |
11/11/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler Nov. 11-17: The end of the world and a film festival |
Asheville Film Festival Yeah, it’s scaled back and it’s bereft of cool special guests, but it’s still the 2009 Asheville Film Festival and it’s this week. Even with the cutbacks and a dubious decision or two, the AFF has managed to secure three noteworthy special-event films: An Education on opening… |
Ken Hanke |
11/10/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Screening Room: When did you first fall in love with the movies? |
I realize that this is a presumptuous question that presupposes that the reader did fall in love with the movies in the first place. Still, I’m assuming for argument’s sake that such a condition probably has something to do with the reason you’re reading this column in the first place.… |
Ken Hanke |
11/06/09 |
| Michael Jackson’s This Is It |
I am not a Michael Jackson fan. This is not a movie made with me in mind. I watched Jackson’s career strictly from the sidelines. I saw most—maybe all—of the music videos from his Thriller album only because they were inescapable if you watched MTV at all in 1983. Even… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| Thirst |
When I found out I was going to be subjected to 133 minutes of Korean vampire movie at a 10 a.m. press screening, I was, to put it mildly, able to contain my joy. I know Korean horror movies are highly prized in some quarters, but the few I’ve seen… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| Coco Before Chanel |
Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel—a film that purports to show how Gabrielle Chanel became the world-famous Coco Chanel—is a perfect example of a sound approach to the biopic. Rather than wander all over the place trying to stuff an entire life into a couple hours of screen time, Fontaine’s film… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| Paris |
When I saw the name of the writer/director of Paris, Cédric Klapisch, I had to look him up and discovered that I had seen—and reviewed—one of his films, L’Auberge Espagnole (2002). That was a film I’d greatly enjoyed, but one that did not stick in my mind, which makes me… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| One Crazy Ride / Riding Solo to the Top of the World |
I cringed when I was asked to take a look at these two travel documentaries by Gaurav Jani done from motorcycles. They simply didn’t sound particularly appealing—and all the buildup I was given about Jani’s do-it-yourself filmmaking wasn’t helping matters. What a pleasant surprise the films turned out to be!… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| The H-Man |
While not as iconic as his Godzilla (1954), the always interesting—and generally underrated—Ishirô Honda created one of his best works with The H-Man (1958), a strange mix of sci-fi, horror and gangsters. In some ways, the film is largely of a piece with much of Honda’s work—especially his 1950s output—in… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| Breaking In |
Despite containing one of Burt Reynolds’ best performances, Bill Forsyth’s Breaking In (1989) did no more for the Scottish filmmaker’s Hollywood career than Housekeeping (1987) had. Of course, it didn’t help that the film had about zero name value apart from Reynolds, was mis-marketed as a comedy/heist movie and came… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| Cranky Hanke's take on the 2009 Asheville Film Festival competition feature films |
There are fewer competing features in this year's festival, largely owing to the fact that the aggressive acquisition approach of the past two years – that snagged us such titles as Blood Car, Sita Sings the Blues and Bart Got a Room – was not taken this year. The natural… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| Rave on |
It's too much to hope for that the film festival will score another coup like last year's closing-night feature, Slumdog Millionaire, but then again films like Slumdog just don't come along every year. What we do get this year, however, looks tasty indeed. For opening night, the festival offers Lone… |
Ken Hanke |
11/04/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler: Nov. 4-10: Vampires, goats and three spirits |
In theaters A more than usually interesting array of movies comes our way this week—including another challenge to local moviegoers to get out and support the kind of non-mainstream film I’m always being asked about. In this case, I specifically refer to Park Chan-wook’s take on the vampire film, Thirst,… |
Ken Hanke |
11/03/09 |
| Still Doing the “Time Warp” After All These Years |
Before last Saturday night at the Carolina Asheville Cinema, it had been about 30 years since I last attended a public screening of Jim Sharman’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) with a live cast. Back then these midnight shows were pretty common. A group of fans would dress up… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| Saw VI |
Saw movies and Halloween go together like ho and hum. That’s not to say that there’s nothing to be said in favor of Saw VI. It’s a good deal better than Saw IV (2007) and Saw V (2008), and while that’s not exactly what you’d call high praise, it’s something.… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| Paranormal Activity |
Is Paranormal Activity the scariest movie ever made? Does it show us the new face of horror? Is Oren Peli this year’s new “savior of the horror movie?” No, no and no. Even on the sliding scale of cutting the movie some slack for being made on an $11,000 or… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| Amelia |
If you took out the tepidly explored notions of an “open marriage” and the vaguest reference imaginable to possible bisexuality, Mira Nair’s Amelia could easily have been made in 1945. Even the depiction of Amelia Earhart’s (Hilary Swank) extra-marital affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) is handled so decorously that… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| The Baader Meinhof Complex |
Do not be put off by a title that suggests some sort of psychological dissertation. Do not be cowed by the fact that Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex is in German with English subtitles (there are occasional outbursts of English) or that it’s two-and-a-half-hours long. This is one of… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| Kika |
One of the most underrated of Pedro Almodóvar’s films, Kika (1993) is nonetheless a great deal of not-exactly-wholesome fun of the kind that only Almodóvar can provide. Indeed, while it’s far from his best film, it stands a pretty good chance of being the filmmaker’s most gleefully twisted one—and if… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| Herb and Dorothy |
Herb and Dorothy (2008) tells the fascinating story of a pair of art lovers without much in the way of means—he’s a postal clerk; she’s a librarian—who still managed to build one of the most important collections of contemporary art. This is one of those documentaries that isn’t going to… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| All That Jazz |
It’s big, it’s colorful, it’s brassy, it’s as egotistical as movies get—and it’s pretty pleased with its own cleverness. It’s Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1979), and whatever else it is, it’s not exactly like anything else—even if parts of it are like a lot of other things. In fact… |
Ken Hanke |
10/28/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler Oct. 28-Nov 3: Michael Jackson and Halloween happenings |
Halloween specials Apart from Paranormal Activity expanding to the Carolina Asheville this Friday, there’s nothing new on the Halloween horizon, but there are a few notable not-so-new movies making reappearances. Asheville Pizza and Brewing is showing Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later ... at 10 p.m. on Friday and its non-Boyle,… |
Ken Hanke |
10/27/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Screening Room: Seeing a lot of Saw |
I happened to be in the position yesterday to look in on the Saw marathon—you know, that less than stellar idea that it would be great to allow people to work their way through all five Saw movies with the big finish being the unveiling of Saw VI at midnight.… |
Ken Hanke |
10/23/09 |
| Séraphine |
Prior to Séraphine, I’d never heard of filmmaker Martin Provost, the stars of his film or, for that matter, the subjects of the movie, painter Séraphine Louis/Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau) and art collector/critic Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur). As a result, I was approaching this biopic with no preconceptions—other than… |
Ken Hanke |
10/21/09 |
| The Stepfather |
What exactly is there to be said about this utterly worthless, incredibly dull, addle-brained waste of 101 minutes except that it’s an utterly worthless, incredibly dull, addle-brained waste of 101 minutes? That pretty much says it all. The 1987 original may have been no great shakes, but it was at… |
Ken Hanke |
10/21/09 |
| Where the Wild Things Are |
I cannot honestly say that I have ever been as conflicted about a movie as I am with Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. It’s been over two days since I watched it, and I know now only slightly more about my feelings on it than I did when… |
Ken Hanke |
10/21/09 |
| It Might Get Loud |
It might not snag Davis Guggenheim another Best Documentary Oscar, but his It Might Get Loud proves that Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White make for livelier viewing than Al Gore. Of course, that probably wasn’t open to serious question in the first place. What was open to question… |
Ken Hanke |
10/21/09 |
| Man Hunt |
Until I had to review it here, I’d never had much interest in Fritz Lang’s Man Hunt (1941). Try as I may, I’ve never been able to get that enthused by most of Lang’s post-Fury (1936) American films. And this one had the added drawback of starring Walter Pidgeon, who… |
Ken Hanke |
10/21/09 |
| Dante’s Inferno |
No, it’s not an adaptation of The Inferno, it’s Ken Russell’s biographical film about painter/poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Oliver Reed) and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Made in 1967, the film is the most ambitious, longest and in many ways the most daring of the films he made for the BBC. It… |
Ken Hanke |
10/21/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler Oct . 21-27: Torture, an aviatrix, guitarists and paranormal stuff |
In theaters OK, here’s one of those weeks where we’re actually getting some things that people have been asking me about. And once again, I encourage you to get out there and support these movies. It’s in everyone’s best interest to help support quality—or potentially quality—film in Asheville. So when… |
Ken Hanke |
10/20/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Screening Room: Seven movies, five days, culture shock |
As those of you who read these columns reguarly know, I was in Florida last week—in large part to bring a long-lost (well, sort of) friend who hadn’t seen a new movie since probably the early 1990s into the 21st century of films. I discussed the choices—and potential choices—a column… |
Ken Hanke |
10/16/09 |
| Departures |
It’s usually a wise precaution to be a little skeptical of Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winners. The choices often seem to fall into one of two categories: movies that play on the voters’ sense of cultural inferiority, or sentimental crowd-pleasers that have been legitimized by simply not being in… |
Ken Hanke |
10/14/09 |
| North by Northwest |
Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) is the filmmaker’s last work in full The 39 Steps (1935) mode. Yes, there are elements of 39 Steps in Frenzy (1972), but Frenzy seems more like a cousin—more closely related to Young and Innocent (1937) than to The 39 Steps. The concept of… |
Ken Hanke |
10/14/09 |
| The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover |
Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover was the art film of 1990, which is to say that if you saw only one art film that year, this was probably the one you saw. It was daring. It had a hint of scandal attached to its… |
Ken Hanke |
10/14/09 |
| Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler Oct. 14-20: Wild things and others |
In theaters It wouldn’t take much for the movies to be better this week than last, especially since Couples Retreat was the only mainstream release. Now, I didn’t see the film, but I saw the trailers and I read Justin Souther’s review (which appears in this week’s Xpress)—and that’s as… |
Ken Hanke |
10/13/09 |
| Lorna’s Silence |
The Belgian Dardenne Brothers—Jean-Pierre and Luc—make films that critics tend to fawn over and no one else much sees. Having once been subjected to their work with The Son (2002), my spirits sank when I saw they were the parties responsible for Lorna’s Silence. It isn’t that I’d call The… |
Ken Hanke |
10/07/09 |
| Whip It |
Without a doubt, Drew Barrymore’s Whip It is the finest film ever made about roller derby. It’s also movie-comfort food at its finest. By that I mean that Whip It doesn’t do one single thing that will surprise you. There is no turn of the plot (well, maybe one) that… |
Ken Hanke |
10/07/09 |
| Zombieland |
OK, I’ll admit it: I’m pretty much over the whole zombie thing—words I may regret considering the apparent spate of vampire pictures that are on the way, thanks to Twilight mania. Nonetheless, it’s true—and nothing about the trailer for newcomer Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland did anything to change that. The film… |
Ken Hanke |
10/07/09 |
