© Beth Dubber, Courtesy of Sundance InstituteKristen Stewart in Camp X-Ray.Kristen Stewart spent five Twilight films getting rescued by werewolves and vampires. Consider Camp X-Ray her rebuttal to a half-decade of playing damsels in distress. As Guantanamo guard Private Cole, Stewart is punched, bloodied, and spat on — and that’s…
In the dark about the history of movies? Get a clue from critic Howie Movshovitz, who’ll be teaching Film 102, a four-class series that starts tonight at the Sie FilmCenter. Film 102 will look at the four major elements of cinema: color, genre, sound and melodrama. The first session, on…
American Mustang, which had its local premiere in November at the Denver International Film Festival, is galloping back into town for an extended run that starts today and continues through January 24 at UA Denver West Village Stadium 12, 14225 West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood, just in time for the…
Russians still make the best movie villains. Since 9/11, Hollywood has been queasy about giving us fictional baddies from Arab countries — the line between cheap stereotypes and real-life religious extremism is too blurry, too delicate. South American drug lords have had their day, and Albanians in bad sweaters just…
A tale of love complicated — if not thwarted — by prior responsibilities, intractable barriers and the rigid high-society norms that frustrate its Victorian characters’ attempts to live as they so desperately want, The Invisible Woman finds Ralph Fiennes proving as adept behind the camera as he is in front…
Can it be true that the apple-cheeked Midwestern evangelicals who send their money, their teenagers and their last-century sexual mores to Uganda genuinely see no link between their fervently anti-gay, anti-condom preaching and that country’s movement to make homosexuality not just illegal, but punishable by death? The toothsome young Pentecostals…
Clark Richert. In the few years it’s been in business, Gildar Gallery has mostly showcased young and up-and-coming artists, but with Dimension and Symmetry: Clark Richert, the intimate space on Broadway has moved to Denver’s big time, as Richert is among the best-known artists in the state. The show comes…
Despite some reluctance, Wes Craven is a name-brand filmmaker. The phrase “Wes Craven Presents” comes with certain expectations thanks to the financial success of the Scream franchise and The Hills Have Eyes series before that. But what cemented Craven’s reputation is A Nightmare on Elm Street, a deathless cycle of…
In Devil’s Due, co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (V/H/S) and first-time screenwriter Lindsay Devlin offer an uninspired found-footage riff on Roman Polanski’s demon-spawn classic, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). On their Dominican Republic honeymoon, the squeakily innocent Samantha (Allison Miller) and Zach (Zach Gilford) are drugged by a cult who draw…
One of the best performances of the year was from the tiny lifeboat in Captain Phillips.On Thursday, this year’s Oscar nominations will be announced, also known as national Gah! What Were Those Idiot Voters Thinking Day. We can’t wait, so in the meantime, we give you this: 1. Marvel Films…
Best known for his roles in the John Waters cannon of cult films, Divine had a short career highlighted by his ability to play trashy women, wayward gals, doting matrons and overzealous sex pots. While he found fame in the seedy underside of Hollywood, the actor also worked to be…
New Zealand stuntwoman-turned-actress Zoë Bell is fully aware of her unique position as an action star who also does her own stunts. After working as Lucy Lawless’s stunt double on Xena: Warrior Princess, Bell was discovered by Quentin Tarantino on the set of Kill Bill. After that, Bell has enjoyed…
Without big truth-telling scenes, grand, great-lady, Meryl Streep-type actors would be out of work. Hell, Meryl Streep would be out of work. But for now, at least, August: Osage County, John Wells’s film adaptation of Tracy Letts’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, keeps her out of the bread line. Streep plays…
Rosemary’s Baby notwithstanding, it’s usually only suburban white people who fall prey to movie ghosts and demons — they’re always the ones opening doors to rooms that shouldn’t be entered, stepping witlessly into pentagrams painted on the floor in goat’s blood, and wondering aloud, “You think this is some sort…
Clark Richert. In the few years it’s been in business, Gildar Gallery has mostly showcased young and up-and-coming artists, but with Dimension and Symmetry: Clark Richert, the intimate space on Broadway has moved to Denver’s big time, as Richert is among the best-known artists in the state. The show comes…
So many ideas in our country begin with the best of intentions and end up completely corrupted. From Lindsay Lohan’s acting career to the once-noble filibuster, well-meaning stuff sometimes just gets out of hand here. But has it caught up with Kickstarter, too? Launched in 2009, this crowd-funding platform seemed,…
The terrible reality of modern life is that even beautiful young people on a first date can’t go a whole evening without checking their phones. Just allowing the present to happen has become increasingly foreign. That’s the idea Spike Jonze is scratching at in his futuristic romance Her, in which…
January! Just the time to snuggle up with a 3-D sword-and-pectoral extravaganza. And although some of its more imaginative plot details would make Edith Hamilton blanch, Renny Harlin’s Legend of Hercules fulfills every silly, flimsy promise that it makes in the first place: There are lots of battles (albeit rather…
The most iconic pinup model in pop-culture history, Bettie Page — with her winking face and gorgeous body — has been loved by fans around the world for decades. But after abandoning the spotlight at the height of her underground career, in the late 1950s, Page all but disappeared…and took…
As the snow settled on Sunday evening, Colorado’s Downton Abbey fans were transported to England in February 1922, only six months after the tragic and untimely death of Mathew Crawley, killed in a car wreck at the end of last season. The Masterpiece-produced show started with Mathew’s widow, Mary, and…
For years, Keith Garcia’s Watching Hour series brought everything from forgotten classics of the VHS era to the newest underground horror and science fiction to adventurous film fans in Denver. That ended when Garcia left the Denver Film Society to take the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s creative manager position, leaving a…
On Thursday, January 9, the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Museum will present a special screening of Chris Anthony’s documentary Climb to Glory: The Legacy of the 10th Mountain Ski Troopers at Vilar Performing Arts Center at Beaver Creek. Anthony’s film featuring interviews with 10th Mountain Division veterans and re-creating some…
