About 20 years ago I was in a kind of partnership with another film historian who told me that, no, there wasn’t a market for a book on pre-code movies. I can only wonder what he thinks today after MGM has released three sets of pre-code movies and Universal just put out their first. Either I was ahead of my time, or he was just simply wrong.
For those of us who aren’t diehard Star Trek fans—or even those who think the new incarnation looks a little like kids playing dress-up—the upcoming week offers little prospective joy in mainstream terms. Everyone and every thing seems geared up for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot.
The question of whether or not Asheville would support a theater—or a part of a theater—devoted to showing older movies—by which I mean movies not currently in release—has come up several times in discussions I’ve had with local theater managers. It’s a question to which there is no easy answer, though input from moviegoing readers might offer some clues in the matter.
As you can see, I opted to go with Weekly Reeler, despite the idea that it might make it appear like I’m announcing my weekly bender. I decided to run that risk, because that’s just the kind of risk-taker I am. Well, actually, I went with it just because the name appealed to me more than the others.
Let me say from the onset that this particular column isn’t aimed at moviegoers who like to argue that certain people (like myself) “overthink” movies. It’s not aimed at passive viewers. No, it’s aimed at people who view the process of movie watching as a kind of inner dialogue between the viewer and the filmmaker.
Well, here we are at week two of this particular blog and you know what? The name Movie Buzz still pretty much sucks. And I haven’t come up with anything better. Worse, no suggestions that I’ve been given are even remotely practical.
As a kind of passive guilty pleasure, Wife Swap held just the right level of appeal to make me say yes. So I immediately called Justin Souther and asked, “Hey, you wanna be on Wife Swap?”
Welcome to our first attempt at a new feature currently called Movie Buzz—because I couldn’t think of anything better. This is by way of being something of an experiment.
By and large, even a movie savvy town like Asheville simply isn’t that keen on subtitled films.
I spent a couple days this past weekend in Orlando and Winter Park (that’s Orlando with attitude) at the Florida Film Festival. I was curious to see the event and compare it to our own Asheville Film Festival.
I admit that it’s often more fun to write a bad review, even if it’s not so much fun to sit through a bad movie.
Stop for a minute and think back on what we’ve seen in Asheville strictly because of the Fine Arts.
reviews by Ken Hanke From Saturday, March 21, through Thursday, March 26, the Fine Arts Theatre, the Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Asheville and the Asheville Art Museum will present the Asheville Jewish Film Festival, with all showings at the Fine Arts Theatre. Adio Kerida (Goodbye Dear Love) Director: Ruth Behar Documentary Not Rated This […]
What interests me most about the criticisms leveled against Slumdog lies in the general nature of the remarks. Each of the critiques rests — at least in part — on the concept of realism. The idea is that the film isn’t realistic.
The bigger picture isn’t just the lack of titles. It’s far more than that. It’s the fact that making these titles unavailable is causing a younger cineastes to have a very skewed view of the history of film. Put simply, you cannot understand the various eras of movies without having access to a broader cross-section than is now available.
We’ve been besieged by movies bearing the critical designation “an instant classic.” A what?
It can be argued—and it almost certainly will be—that this year’s Academy Awards were utterly predictable. The smart money had said it was going to be a Slumdog Millionaire straight ticket, and with eight Oscars—picture, director, adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing, original score, song and sound mixing—they were dead on. Certainly I can’t say it wasn’t […]
Midnight Meat Train may be no classic of the genre, but it’s certainly a better and more interesting film than most of what passes for horror movies these days.
Let us examine the pitfalls of revisiting some long unseen favorite movie or TV show from your younger years.
The comments and debates — along with readers’ personal anecdotes — have been lively, civilized, fun and thought-provoking, which is exactly what online exchanges ought to be. Now, that I’ve established the fact that I think highly of the folks who post here, let me put something to you: where do we go from here?
Madness has been a staple of movies as long as there have been movies, and it affords us an absolute treasure trove of great moments in film, because — at least so far as the cinema is concerned — madmen are amazingly gregarious.
