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cranky hanke Articles

• Star Trek Into Darkness (PG-13)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 4 days 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.

  17 comments

  240 views

• Java Heat (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 4 days ago

  Genre: Action

  Director: Conor Allyn

  Starring: Kellan Lutz, Mickey Rourke, Ario Bayu, Frans Tumbuan

  The Story: A young American of dubious truth joins forces with a Muslim police detective to take down a crime lord and the terrorists he's helping. The Lowdown: An impossibly convoluted story, a pair of likable leads, a nasty villain and some solid action scenes make this OK, but ultimately not terrific. On its own aims, it's not bad.

  6 comments

  111 views

• That's Entertainment (G)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 4 days 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

  93 views

• The Ladykillers (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 4 days 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.

  6 comments

  126 views

• Godzilla Raids Again (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 4 days 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

  91 views

• House of Good and Evil (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 4 days 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

  154 views

• Walk Don't Run (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 4 days 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

  80 views

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

  

  MOVIE

  Ken Hanke | 4 days 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.

  8 comments

  434 views

• Java Heat (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 11 days ago

  Genre: Action

  Director: Conor Allyn

  Starring: Kellan Lutz, Mickey Rourke, Ario Bayu. Frans Tumbuan

  In Brief: The second ActionFest monthly screening is the same setup as last time with all proceeds going to Homeward Bound of Asheville, and the $10 admission includes free Ninja Porter (from Asheville Pizza) and soft drinks and popcorn from Carolina Cinemas. This time, viewers get the chance to see the film Java Heat starring Kellan Lutz (the Twilight films) and Mickey Rourke before its official opening. The film is a wild yarn — that doesn't always make sense — offering more style (the director obviously has seen a lot of Brian DePalma movies) than you probably expect, and a lot of often very explosive action that you probably do expect. Lutz makes a stolid, enigmatic hero and villains don't come any more perverse than Mickey Rourke.

  8 comments

  176 views

• To Catch a Thief (PG)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 11 days ago

  Genre: Suspense Thriller

  Director: Alfred Hitchcock

  Starring: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams

  In Brief: Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955) stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly (yes, this is where the famous fireworks kissing scene comes from) in one of the master's lighter and most pleasant 1950s films. The film is nothing more than a romantic suspenser soufflé of the kind that Hitchcock was rightly famous for. OK, despite some location work, the film does suffer from some of the most obvious rear screen and process work of Hitch's career, but with Cary Grant as a retired jewel thief trying to prove he really is retired to the police — with time out for romancing Grace Kelly, it doesn't matter much.

  6 comments

  146 views