After scholar Cranky Hanke died, y’all carried on with professionals Scott Douglas and Francis X. Friel.

Recently, in my opinion, each week the reviews contain less content and depth.

Mountain Xpress stated on Feb. 20 that it will change to “short takes” [“Reviews Hosted by the Asheville Movie Guys”]. No longer will movie reviews focus on detailed writing, as evidenced with Edwin Arnaudin and Bruce Steele’s recent summaries in print and Xpress’ website. So now we would need to go elsewhere for an actual review.

With great respect of Mountain Xpress but regret with the Movies section.

— George Hunker

Asheville

Editor’s response: Featuring one or two authoritative reviewers has limited our ability to give voice to others in the community in general, and in particular, has not included women and people of color. So we decided to try a new format that includes new voices, while still providing solid information about the local film scene.

We plan to have a sizable list of guest reviewers. The shorter reviews are intended as an aggregation of local film expertise, pointing to longer versions online when they are available. The new section is a work in progress. For its second installment, we added two new voices, and the reviews were longer. The following week, we had two additional new reviewers. We hope you’ll stick with us and keep the feedback coming as we explore this more inclusive approach to promoting a community conversation around movies.