The sports movie is rarely versatile: an outsider, or group of outsiders (wrong race, wrong gender, wrong species), have uncanny talent in their field, but the old guard (typically, white, old men), don’t like the change the new person represents. So the rebels have to use their talent to blow…
Lawrence Dai will be watching Julie & Julia for the 365th time at 8 p.m. tonight at the Jones, as part of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s quirky Off-Center series. In addition to the screening, there will be free beer and unelaborated-upon shenanigans involving onions; tickets are $10. Julie &…
Birger Sandzén. Though Birger Sandzén was born in Sweden, studied painting there and in Paris and later made his permanent home in Kansas, we in Colorado can claim him as one of our own. Sandzén found his muse here — in our stunning scenery — and after his first extended…
Fellow anthemic NPR darlings Arcade Fire and Radiohead might fiercely divide public opinion, but there aren’t a lot of Sigur Rós haters: People either love the Icelandic post-rock band or are content to let their ethereal sounds fade into the background. It follows that there probably aren’t going to be…
Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre is something of a comeback for the Finnish filmmaker. His warmhearted comedy of underdog working-class solidarity, made with a mixed Finnish-French-Senegalese cast in the French port city Le Havre, was the most warmly received movie — at least by the press — shown last May in…
Eating, more or less, is the hallmark of the holidays (not to mention a cornerstone of the e-card industry) — Thanksgiving, in particular. So, whether your family-time is a drunken-uncle disaster, a Leave it to Beaver affair or something in between, at least you have some turkey, gravy and mashed…
Chuck Close. In the last few years, the Loveland Museum and Gallery has stepped up its game by presenting the work of famous artists. And the beat goes on with Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something. Close first came to the fore in the 1970s with hyper-realist…
Desperately trying to appeal to not just the Gen X’ers who grew up with Kermit, but also the tykes who’ve never even heard of Jim Henson, The Muppets has none of the easy confidence of the original TV show or movie. The reboot is largely the labor of love of…
The first thing you see in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia is a tight close-up of Kirsten Dunst’s face. Behind her, slow as molasses, birds are dropping from the sky. Brueghel’s “The Flight of Icarus” turns leisurely to ash; a passage from Tristan und Isolde swells on the soundtrack as lightning…
Martin Scorsese’s first foray into big-budget family filmmaking — as well as his inaugural effort in 3-D — Hugo is a personal statement disguised as a sellout. Based on Brian Selznick’s 2007 illustrated kids’ book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Hugo centers on its title character, played by Asa Butterfield,…
According to the Department of Defense, members of the American military committed suicide at the rate of one every 36 hours between 2005 and 2010. Ten years into the war in the Middle East, with troops officially set to exit Iraq in January, the problem of service members returning home…
Chuck Close. In the last few years, the Loveland Museum and Gallery has stepped up its game by presenting the work of famous artists. And the beat goes on with Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something. Close first came to the fore in the 1970s with hyper-realist…
Director Danfung Dennis’s Hell And Back Again seeks to document the personal experience of war with extreme and sustained intimacy. The nightmare-vivid combat footage Dennis shot over the so-called Summer of Decision in 2009, while he was embedded with a Marine battalion behind enemy lines in southern Afghanistan, is only…
As life-or-death dramedy, The Descendants poses several important questions: Why has it taken Alexander Payne seven years to follow up on his critically beloved, box-office boffo, merlot-squelching Sideways? And what has blunted this gifted writer-director’s edge? Payne topped his debut feature, the provocatively obnoxious abortion comedy Citizen Ruth (1996), with…
An egalitarian study of crime and punishment in a small Southern town, Into the Abyss is also an unmistakably Herzogian inquiry into the lawlessness of the human soul. That would be the abyss of the title, though if you’re looking for more of that kind of shameless lyrical swagger, you…
The Ellie Caulkins Opera House was south of capacity for the Starz Denver Film Festival’s closing night, which made some degree of sense, because the flick being showcased was The Artist, which is both black-and-white and silent. Yet the film, by French director Michel Hazanavicius, manages to encapsulate the reason…
The Starz Denver Film Festival might be your best chance to see the Oscar contenders, the big-name indie films and movies with Sundance logos all over them, but if you’re looking for something a bit more odd, you’re best bet is going to be the Denver Underground Film Festival, which…
Again this year, Starz Denver Film Festival artistic director Brit Withey is offering his must-see picks for each day of the fest — including many flicks that movie lovers might otherwise miss amid the flood of silver-screen goodies. His choice for today: You’ve Been Trumped. Check out the full pitch…
Again this year, Starz Denver Film Festival artistic director Brit Withey is offering his must-see picks for each day of the fest — including many flicks that movie lovers might otherwise miss amid the flood of silver-screen goodies. His choice for tonight: Good Bye. Click here to read his full…
What’s the best way to kick off a new film series called Mile High Movies? With stoner movies of course. The first installment has already come and gone with Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke, but tonight at 8 p.m. at the Oriental Theater, you’ll be able to play catch…
Colorado filmmakers dominated the 2011 Banff Mountain Film Festival awards over the weekend at the annual competition in Alberta, Canada’s Banff National Park, with Carbondale-based director Anson Fogel (Forge Motion Pictures), Basalt-based director Pete McBride (Pete McBride Photography), Greeley-based director Ben Stookesberry (Clear H20 Films), and Boulder-based director Peter Mortimer…
Again this year, Starz Denver Film Festival artistic director Brit Withey is offering his must-see picks for each day of the fest — including many flicks that movie lovers might otherwise miss amid the flood of silver-screen goodies. His choice for Tuesday, November 8: “Close Encounters of the Animated Kind…
