Author:   Ken Hanke

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Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, David Thewlis, Emily Watson, Guy Oliver-Watts, Charlie Cox, Maxine Peake

The Theory of Everything

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Biopic about Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane. The Lowdown: Unabashed crowd-pleaser Oscar bait that works on that level — thanks in large part to the acting — but never really transcends the conventions of the biopic genre.

Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler November 26-December 2: The Theory of Horrible Penguins

Posted on by Ken Hanke

In Theaters. One much-anticipated art title is pitted against two mainstream titles that may or may not be that anticipated in search of your Thanksgiving moviegoing dollars. I admit to still being a little mystified by the idea of spending your holidays at the movies. Oh, I understand it in broad strokes — it gives […]

Starring: Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Tony McCoy, Loretta King, Harvey B. Dunn, George Becwar, Dolores Fuller

Bride of the Monster

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief:  Though it comes a week early, it can be fairly said that this is the Thursday Horror Picture Show's Thanksgiving turkey, but what an entertaining turkey it is. Saying that Bride of the Monster (1955) is the best movie Ed Wood ever made isn’t exactly showering it with praise, since that’s based on the sliding…
Starring: Matthew Allis

The Day Carl Sandburg Died

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: This is a make-up showing of The Day Carl Sandburg Died, which the Hendersonville Film Society had slated to run some considerable time ago. The film is a scrupulously detailed, reasonably comprehensive and beautifully presented documentary on the great American poet Carl Sandburg from Asheville filmmaker Paul Bonesteel. Whatever you think you know…
Starring: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Kathleen Turner, Rob Riggle, Laurie Holden, Rachel Melvin

Dumb and Dumber To

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Twenty years after the fact, we get the further adventures of Harry and Lloyd. The Lowdown: The “much-anticipated” (they say) sequel to Dumb and Dumber (1994) is a shapeless retread of things that supposedly worked in the first movie. One of the worst films of 2014.
Starring: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullman, Gertrud Fridh, Georg Rydeberg, Erland Josephson

Hour of the Wolf

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Exempting the multi-director film Stimulantia (1967), Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf (1968) follows his equally disturbing Persona (1966) and is stylistically and tonally very similar. Why Hour of the Wolf  is classified as a horror-drama and Persona as a drama is a matter for debate. Both are nightmarish. Both deal (as does…
Starring: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Kevin Bankston, William Binney

Citizenfour

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Activist documentary on whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The Lowdown: Clearly — and unquestioningly — in the pro-Snowden camp, this film lacks balance, which is expected in this type of movie. But it also tries to create urgency with a story where we already know the ending (such as it is). Worthy, but a good…
Starring: Will Rogers, Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Stepin Fetchit, Henry B. Walthall, David Landau, Hattie McDaniel

Judge Priest

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Will Rogers once called John Ford’s Judge Priest the best movie he ever made. Of course, he was promoting the film when he said that. Whether or not it’s quite true, it’s easily his most controversial — and most problematic for modern viewers. The story — adapted from the writings of American humorist and occasional actor Irvin…
Starring: Gael García Bernal, Kim Bodnia, Dimitri Leonidas, Haluk Bilginer, Shohreh Aghdashloo

Rosewater

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Fact-based story of Iranian-born, Canada-based journalist Maziar Bahari’s imprisonment and torture by the government of Iran. The Lowdown: The hook here is that this is the writing-directing debut of Jon Stewart. The results are a mixed bag, with moments of greatness that aren’t enough to make the film itself great. It is, however,…
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Billy Gilbert

The Great Dictator

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: For their final Budget Big Screen film of 2014 (the free Tuesday and Thursday showings will continue through the winter and the BBS series will return in the spring), the Asheville Film Society is running Charles Chaplin’s first talkie, The Great Dictator (1940). Chaplin held out against talking pictures longer than anyone —…
Starring: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram, Dan Duryea

Ministry of Fear

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Fritz Lang’s American films tend to be pretty hit or miss, but this adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel that he made for Paramount is definitely in the hit category. Lang and screenwriter Seton I. Miller have stripped the story of its deeper implications — like a lot of Greene’s work, the novel is drenched in…
Starring: Diane Krüger, Benno Fürmann, Guillaume Canet, Gary Lewis, Danny Boon, Daniel Brühl

Joyeux Noël

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Joyeux Noël (2005) is a pretty good movie with something like a great one buried inside it. The trick is getting to that movie. The premise comes from an actual historical event — here, greatly enlarged and romanticized — in WWI where warring soldiers in “no man’s land” called a very unofficial truce…
Starring: Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Kim Parker, Stanley Maxted, Terence Kilburn

Fiend Without a Face

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Fiend Without a Face (1958) is mostly known for its ambulatory — and occasionally leaping — “brain monsters” — and with good reason. This English-made — but set in Canada to make it seem more American and more exportable to the States — sci-fi horror thriller is one of the minor gems of 1950s B…
Starring: (Voices) Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung

Big Hero 6

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: A boy, his inflatable robot and his friends track down the person who stole his invention and caused the death of his brother. The Lowdown: Wonderful to look at, blessed with one terrific character and boasting a good deal of honest sentimentality, Big Hero 6 is brought down a notch by a well-worn…
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, Michael Caine

Interstellar

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: The only hope for a dying Earth is the discovery of an inhabitable planet that may — or may not — lie on the other side of a wormhole. The Lowdown: A deeply flawed film that tries to be something more than it can manage, but it’s still an entertaining work of considerable…
Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Turi Ferro, Agostina Belli

The Seduction of Mimi

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Lina Wertmüller was a major force in film for a time, and her work hardly merits the near obscurity it has today. Her sense of comedy might be a little broad, sometimes clunky and a little too predicated on the charm of her usual leading man, Giancarlo Giannini. But her films have drive,…
Starring: Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Lindsay Duncan, Amy Ryan

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: A washed-up actor known for having played a superhero tries to reinvent and validate himself by writing, producing, directing and starring in a Broadway play. The Lowdown: Full-blown filmmaking written in all capital letters. Birdman is both a stylistic and dramatic tour de force — the kind of nonstop brilliant movie you hope…
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Clémence Poésy, Joseph Mawle, Eddie Marsan, Timothy Spall, Nikita Mistry, Luke Treadway

Heartless

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Like Ridley’s best-known film (he’s only made three) The Reflecting Skin (1990), this is very clearly a horror movie — some of it is quite graphic — but it’s more of a very perverse fairy tale than a traditional horror movie. Put briefly, it’s the story of a young man (Sturgess) with a large, disfiguring,…
Starring: Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, Peter Miles, Louis Calhern, Shepperd Strudwick

The Red Pony

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: How you feel about The Red Pony (1949) is going to depend a great deal on how you feel about the John Steinbeck story and the Aaron Copland music. Not being a fan of either — and just having a basic aversion to “life lesson” stories that deal with the death of a…