Author:   Ken Hanke

Showing 337-357 of 5225 results
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, Dave O'Brien, Dorothy Short, Angelo Rossitto

Spooks Run Wild

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: The second of Bela Lugosi's Monogram Nine, Spooks Run Wild, mixes horror with comedy as it finds Lugosi going up against producer Sam Katzman's other major property of the era, The East Side Kids, a slightly cleaned-up version of The Dead End Kids from Sidney Kingsley's play (and film) Dead End. In other words, these…
Starring: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance, Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan

Shane

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: George Stevens' post-WWII films tend to be an acquired taste which I've never really managed to acquire. They're too heavy-handed, too self-conscious, too self-important and, invariably, too long. The first time I saw Shane (1953) was at a kiddie matinee in 1963 or thereabouts. (Our local theater ran a lot of old Paramount and…
Starring: Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Celeste Holm, Louis Armstrong, John Lund

High Society

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: No, this musical version of The Philadelphia Story is not a great film by any means. Charles Walters' direction is at best workmanlike, at worst pedestrian. It has the air of canned theater in many scenes, along with that typical 1950s overlit look of most MGM musicals. But it does combine the talents of Bing…

Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler December 23-29: The Big Christmas Flood — Including the Best Film of the Year

Posted on by Ken Hanke

In Theaters. It’s Merry Christmas at the movies week and to prove it we are on the receiving end of no less than seven new movies — five mainstream and two art titles. Six of them open on Friday, and one on Wednesday. Move over Star Wars. Owing to the time of year, I’ve also […]

Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler November 18-24: Spotlight Secret Room Night Games

Posted on by Ken Hanke

Once again the floodgates have opened and we are deluged with movies — three mainstream and two art titles. Of course, one of those mainstreamers is one of the year’s biggest Next Big Things: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2. This is one those movies that you “have” to see or suffer a violent loss of pop culture social status.

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Birchir, Tim Roth, Michae; Madsen, Bruce Dern, James Parks

The Hateful Eight

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Eight people — all with secrets and hidden motives — are trapped in a cabin in a snowstorm.  The Lowdown: A sprawling, darkly funny Western that's really more of a whodunit than a Western. Violent, bloody, provocative, likely to upset some audiences and one of the best films of the year.
Starring: Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Barbara Cupisiti, Asia Argento

The Church

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Michele Soavi's 1989 film was originally intended to be part of producer and co-writer Dario Argento's loosely connected Demons movies. While it retains elements of those films — especially contagious possessions and trapping the cast in a single location — it is mostly its own beast. And a very curious beast it is. Like most…
Starring: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Helen Burgess, Porter Hall

The Plainsman

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Yes, Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur) and Buffalo Bill Cody (James Ellison) really existed. For that matter, so did a lot of the characters in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman (1936), but nearly every connection to reality ends there — and the film is pretty upfront about it. Right…
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler, Jake Lacy, John Magaro

Carol

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Romance between an older woman and a younger one in the early 1950s. The Lowdown: Beautifully crafted, meticulously detailed, wonderfully performed, yet somehow a little too cool to work quite as well as it should.
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck

The Revenant

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Fact-based tale of survival in the wilderness of 1820s American frontier.  The Lowdown: Technically marvelous, but emotionally it's pretty much a dreary dead end.
Starring: Nastassja Kinski, Rolf Hoppe. Herbert Gronemeyer, Anja-Christine Preussler, Edda Seippel

Spring Symphony

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Reasonably accurate (with a modicum of subtext that's so slight as to be almost nonexistent) account of the early years of composer Robert Schumann (Herbert Groenemeyer) and Clara Wieck (Nasstassja Kinski). Spring Symphony (1983) is the sort of biopic that gives biopics a bad name. It runs no risks and is so intent…
Starring: Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Romy Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress

What’s New Pussycat?

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: When it came out in 1965, Clive Donner's What's New Pussycat? was considered rather distasteful — even vulgar — as well as frantic, unstructured and rather silly. All of this is perhaps true, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. (Not everyone disliked it; Andrew Sarris championed the film in 1965.) It's unlikely a…
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini

Joy

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: The story of the woman who created the Miracle Mop. The Lowdown: Call David O. Russell's latest a magnificently wayward and uniquely American success story. It's by turns funny and charming — and, yes, it's a little shaggy, but that may be part of its quality.
Starring: Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson, Lionel Stander, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner

The Cassandra Crossing

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: The Velveeta runs thick in this Lew Grade and Carlo Ponti co-production that tries cash in on the waning days of the 1970s disaster movie craze with this weird hybrid medical-thriller-and-disaster picture. The Cassandra Crossing (1976) is directed with minimum artistry by George Pan Costamos (who would change the Pan to "P" and…
Starring: Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, John Carradine, Wanda McKay, Michael Ames, Henry Hall

Voodoo Man

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: That existential classic Voodoo Man (1944) was specifically chosen for New Year's Eve because its brevity allows the viewer ample time to start off the evening with the movie and be safely home and out of harm's way before the madness kicks in — or, alternatively, to go become a part of the madness. It's…
Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Tom Hollander, Joshua McGuire

About Time

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: This is the closest the Asheville Film Society could come to a movie that's kind of seasonal, since the film's basic holiday connection (New Year's Eve) is tenuous, but no matter. Richard Curtis' About Time — the third (and supposedly final) of Curtis' directorial efforts — is suitable enough, and I don't think anyone will complain.…
Starring: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong'o

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Sequel to the original Star Wars trilogy. The Lowdown: Definitely a movie made for — and by — fans. It does exactly what it needs to be a crowd-pleaser in that regard. But whether it breaks any new ground ... not so much.
Starring: Will Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Eddie Marsan, Luke Wilson

Concussion

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Fact-based story about the Pittsburgh pathologist who blew the whistle on the NFL cover-up on brain damage in football. The Lowdown: Mostly pretty effective agitprop drama, but with an unfortunate tendency toward speech-making and a rushed — and overly melodramatic — conclusion.
Starring: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Paul Dano, Rachel Weisz, Jane Fonda

Youth

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: The lives of two old friends staying at a health spa in the Alps are at the center of this expansive film. The Lowdown: The best film of the year has arrived — a grand banquet of sight and sound that is at once funny and tragic. This is an absolute must-see.
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Ben Whishaw, Matthias Schoenaerts, Adrian Schiller, Amber Heard

The Danish Girl

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: The sort-of-fact-based story of one of the earliest attempts at a sex-change. The Lowdown: A good-looking film on a daring subject that does not overcome its too genteel, tepid approach — or its confused portrait of its main character.