Author:   Ken Hanke

Showing 883-903 of 5225 results
Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Zachary Booth, Devon Graye, Joseph Cross, Alexia Rasmussen, Chris Mulkey, Jayma Mays

Last Weekend

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: An over-privileged family has a bad Labor Day weekend when the whole gang gets together. The Lowdown: Tone-deaf, tin-eared drama about largely unlikable people with lots of money and a lot of self-indulgent problems.
Starring: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Myrna Loy, Charles Ruggles, Charles Butterworth, C. Aubrey Smith

Love Me Tonight

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: With apologies to Ernst Lubitsch, Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932) is far and away the best of all Maurice Chevalier-Jeanette MacDonald musical comedies — and one of my top three films of all time. The combination of Mamoulian's nonstop inventiveness, a barrage of terrific Rodgers and Hart songs (four of which became…
Starring: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, Wylie Watson

The 39 Steps

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: It's the picture where Alfred Hitchcock introduced the concept of an innocent man on the run from both the police and the bad guys while trying to prove his innocence. It's also the movie with the very first of Hitchcock's ice-blonde leading ladies. And The 39 Steps (1935) can still hold its own…
Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Rosie Fellner, Claire Keelan, Marta Barrio

The Trip to Italy

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon go on another tour of upscale restaurants — this time in Italy. The Lowdown: Similar in most respects to the original The Trip, this sequel fills all its expected requirements, but has a much more pronounced undercurrent of sadness that makes for a richer experience.
Starring: Nicol Williamson, Judy Parfitt, Anthony Hopkins, Marianne Faithfull, Mark Dignam, Michael Pennington, Gordon Jackson

Hamlet

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Sometimes referred to as "the red brick Hamlet," Tony Richardson's Hamlet (1969) is unusual in that it manages to turn Shakespeare's play into a quirky personal work. It's not only radical in that Richardson cuts the play to a brisk 117 minutes, but because it's a Hamlet very much of its time, with…
Starring: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts, John Ortiz

The Drop

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story:  Complex crime yarn about a Chechen-owned bar used as a money drop slated to be robbed on Super Bowl night. The Lowdown: Wonderfully well-cast with a pleasingly involved story, The Drop is certainly a good film, but not the great one its writing, directing and acting pedigree suggests it could have been.
Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Dwight Frye / George Zucco, Mary Carlisle, Dwight Frye

The Vampire Bat / Dead Men Walk

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: It's a double dose of vampires (well, sort of) at the Thursday Horror Picture Show with Frank R. Strayer's The Vampire Bat (1933) and Sam Newfield's Dead Men Walk (1943). The Vampire Bat is an atmospheric cheapie that takes full advantage of its better-than-average cast and its rented Universal Pictures sets. It creaks…
Starring: Paolo Villaggio, Isa Danieli, Gigio Morra, Sergio Solli, Ester Carloni, Paolo Bonacelli

Ciao, Professore!

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: If you can overlook the feeling that the Lina Wertmüller of the 1970s would likely have sneered in contempt at her own 1992 film Ciao, Professore! it's possible to enjoy the film on its own slight terms. It's really nothing more than an Italian-flavored To Sir, with Love (1967) with third-graders rather than…
Starring: Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Mackenzie Astin

The Last Days of Disco

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: The unexpected success of Barcelona (1994) helped secure the making of Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998), Stillman's most expensive and elaborate film. This time his film is set in the early 1980s — right when disco is breathing its last and the club that all the characters flock to is…
Starring: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, François Civil, Marion Lambert

As Above, So Below

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: A search for the philosopher's stone in the Paris catacombs turns deadly in a supernatural way. The Lowdown: Pretty bottom-of-the-barrel horror made that much worse by nausea-inducing shaky-cam and often incoherent direction.
Starring: Robert Shayne, Joyce Terry, Richard Crane, Doris Merrick, Beverly Garland

The Neanderthal Man

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Having fallen on hard times since his glory days in silent cinema, E.A. Dupont found himself working with the exploitation (see the obligatory cheesecake scene) team of Jack Pollexfen and Aubrey Wisberg and turning out The Neanderthal Man (1953) — a film that might best be described as having been scraped off the…
Starring: John Leyton, Michael Sarne, Grazina Frame, Freddie and the Dreamers, Ron Moody, Michael Ripper, Nicholas Parsons

Every Day’s a Holiday (Seaside Swingers)

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Released in the US (usually on the bottom of a double bill) as Every Day's a Holiday (Seaside Swingers) (1965) is the film that attempted to do for Freddie and the Dreamers what A Hard Day's Night (1964) did for The Beatles. It didn't. Not only was James Hill no Richard Lester, but…
Starring: Julie Harris, Laurence Harvey, Shelley Winters, Ron Randell, Anton Diffring

I Am a Camera

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: It's the film of the play (by John Van Druten) of the book (by Christopher Isherwood) that would eventually become Cabaret. In fact, while the story is similar, I Am a Camera just belongs to a different world than Cabaret — so much so that comparisons, while inevitable, are largely meaningless. Though usually…
Starring: Mark Duplass, Elisabeth Moss, Ted Danson

The One I Love

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: A couple whose marriage is disintegrating is sent on a weekend getaway that has unexpected results. The Lowdown: When it works, this high-concept look at the nature of relationships works beautifully. But it doesn't always work. Even then, it remains interesting, but delivers less than it promises.
Starring: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh, Omar Sy, Aïssa Maïga, Charlotte Le Bon

Mood Indigo

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story: The fanciful — and doomed — romance of a wealthy young man and the girl he falls for.  The Lowdown: There is more pure invention in the first five minutes of Mood Indigo than in just about all the other films this year put together. That's both its magical greatness and why some…
Starring: Earl Lynn Nelson, Paul Eenhoorn, Karrie Crouse, Elizabeth McKee, Alice Olivia Clarke

Land Ho!

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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The Story:  Two aging ex-brothers-in-law go on a road trip in Iceland. The Lowdown: A somewhat meandering, not terrifically adventurous but thoroughly likable little character study that benefits from sharp performances and Icelandic scenery.
Starring: Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishû Ryû, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimura

Good Morning

Reviewed by Ken Hanke on
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In Brief: Yasujirô Ozu's Good Morning (1959) is typical of the filmmaker's work in that it looks, rather disapprovingly, at the growing westernization of post-war Japan. But Good Morning — with its story of two boys refusing to speak until their father buys a TV set — is slighter, warmer and more accepting than most of Ozu's films. It…