Well, the 83rd Academy Awards are behind us and thank God for that. Also behind is the ill-advised, experimental live streaming—or maybe that’s steaming—video feed that found Justin Souther and me pretty much chained to one spot for five hours to comment on the show as it proceeded. I am even more grateful that that’s over.
In this week’s Elitist Bastards Go To The Movies podcast, Mountain Xpress film critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, Unknown and I Am Number Four. The Bastards also discuss Brian De Palma’s iconic horror film Carrie (this week’s Thursday Horror Picture Show) and the Josef von Sternberg classic Shanghai Express (next week’s Asheville Film Society screening). And just to whet your appetite for next week’s episode, they even talk a little about forthcoming flicks Drive Angry 3D and Hall Pass.
In this week’s Elitist Bastards Go To The Movies podcast, Mountain Xpress film critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther review: The Eagle, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Just Go with It, Company Men, Barney’s Version, Gnomeo & Juliet and The Illusionist. They also chat about The Mummy’s Hand (1940) and The Mummy’s Tomb (1942)—this week’s Thursday Horror Picture Show—and The Hours (2002)—this week’s Asheville Film Society screening. And to top off the tank, they guess about the quality of Unknown, I Am Number Four and Big Mommas: Like Father Like Son.
In this week’s Elitist Bastards Go To The Movies podcast, Mountain Xpress film critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther talk about current releases The Roommate and Sanctum, as well as giving a preview of The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2011. They also discuss the early Robert Rodriguez schlock-horror flick From Dusk Till Dawn (this week’s Thursday Horror Picture Show) and the classic Charlie Chaplin film City Lights (next week’s Asheville Film Society screening). And just to keep themselves limber, they also chat about upcoming releases The Illusionist, The Eagle, Just Go with It and Gnomeo & Juliet before working themselves into an infuriated froth over the mere existence of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.
The horror! The horror! It’s finally here—the dreaded week that finds Justin Bieber: Never Say Never comin’ at you in the miracle of 3D. It’s not as if it wasn’t a sufficiently terrifying prospect without 3D-ification. Thank God, there are five other movies opening, even if one of them stars Adam Sandler and another stars Channing Tatum. Relativity is a wondrous thing.
There are no mysteries this week—four movies are definitely opening on local screens. Come Friday, one horror movie, The Rite, one action picture, The Mechanic, and two art house films, Blue Valentine and Tiny Furniture will all be festooning our screens with cinematic delights. Well, with cinematic something. The delight part remains to be seen.
This Friday, June 18, George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead—the maestro’s sixth zombie movie—opens at Carolina Cinemas in Asheville. The folks of the Asheville Zombie Walk will be on hand in full zombie attire, and they are inviting other zombies to join them.
Did anybody catch City Island during its earlier—and very brief—run locally? Xpress movie critic Justin Souther did, but he seems to be one of the few who did. So when it turned out that the film was being given a second chance at big-screen life in Asheville—starting this Friday at Carolina Asheville—Souther spoke with the film’s star, Andy Garcia, about this unusual turn of events, about the film itself and the state of independent movie production today.
Here’s a list of some of my favorite kid movies. Some of these I saw first as a kid myself; some as an adult. But I’d watch any one of them again now — with or without my kids.
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?”
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.
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?
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.
Local movie reviewers, including the Mountain Xpress’ own Ken Hanke, will dissect the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony tonight (Wednesday) on public radio station WCQS.
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?
