In 1952, Manoel de Oliveira sketched a fable of impossible longing that became, finally, The Strange Case of Angelica. Though the automobile models in de Oliveira’s 2010 film are modern, many plot details remain of the period of its writing: On a torrentially rainy night, the Portas estate sends a…
Tracy Morgan called Sarah Palin “good masturbation material” last night on national television during a TNT broadcast of an NBA game. Maybe not what the network would have preferred that he say, but a). he was sort of baited and b). this is Tracy Morgan, who is more-or-less completely indistinguishable…
So, we missed last week’s episode of Jersey Shore. Our bad. Yes, we know, MTV replayed it at least thirty times since, but we just forgot, okay? From the commercials and pre-show recaps, it looks like Snooki possibly realized she had a drinking problem, but thankfully bounced back into her…
News Corp. and Disney (who own Fox and ABC, respectively) are considering pulling their ad-based free streaming shows from Hulu — remember that they are two of the three companies who founded Hulu back in 2008. Hulu has done incredibly well in terms of viewership, but its subscription-based Hulu Plus…
2011: Year in Preview. Bobbi Walker, owner of Walker Fine Art, has employed a clever way to create an automatic group show by putting together examples of work by all of the artists who will be featured in duets this year. The show looks good, but what’s really neat is…
Writer-director Tanya Hamilton’s striking debut is the rare recent American independent film that goes beyond the private dramas of its protagonists, imagining them as players in broader historical moments. Set in the Germantown section of Philadelphia in the summer of 1976, Night Catches Us examines the failed hopes of ’60s…
The Rite is the latest of at least a dozen widely released American movies in half as many years with demonic possession a major plot point. This doesn’t mean the subject is wrung out; its continuing resonance with audiences hasn’t been effaced by secular pop psychology or modernization within the…
Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist breathes life into a celluloid fossil, lovingly animating an unproduced script by the great filmmaker Jacques Tati. Chomet sets The Illusionist on the cusp of the ’60s, around the time Tati wrote the script as a followup to his hit Mon Oncle. The title character, a…
IFC’s new show Portlandia is basically a hipster SNL. It stars Fred Armisen (of, uh, SNL) and Carrie Brownstein (aka the Jesus Christ of Portland hip). The first episode premieres Friday, but you can watch it now on Hulu. In it, jokes are made about organic chicken and radical feminist…
Joan Moment and Monroe Hodder. Though Joan Moment has spent the past four decades in California, she began her art career right here in Colorado in the late ’60s when she was a graduate student at the University of Colorado in Boulder. That makes it easy to associate her work…
Taking in Enemies of the People is a little like watching a Cambodian Shoah, if we had access to the director’s methods and motivations instead of just the astonishing results. Chronicling his ongoing project to track down and document those responsible for the Khmer Rouge’s late-’70s reign of terror, co-director…
Ivan Reitman, master of the high-concept, big-budget Hollywood comedy (Ghostbusters, Dave), would seem an unlikely candidate to direct No Strings Attached, an extremely low-concept, low-key romantic comedy of contemporary sexual mores centered on the dating foibles of attractive nerds. Fully devoid of the fantasy contrivance that often sets a Reitman…
Tracking the parallel trajectories of three employees laid off from cushy corporate jobs at the same Boston-based manufacturing conglomerate, The Company Men is transparent in its ambition to capture The Way We Live Now from a sensitive and equitable — rather than a withering and satiric — point of view…
There are many things that make English television better than American television. Mostly, it is a lack of censorship; American TV loves violence but hates sex, drugs and profanity. English TV loves them all equally, and luckily for us, by the good graces of YouTube and Netflix, we can indulge…
My, how attitudes change — or, rather, how well MTV edits. Episode three opens with Sammi feeling remorseful after somehow, just now, realizing Ronnie is a liar. A big one. She’s ready to apologize to the girls, and Ronnie is ready for her to peace out of the relationship, since…
Last week we met up with the old crew and were introduced to Deena, the “dirty chihuahua” (Sammi’s nickname, not ours) who came attached to Snooki. This week we pick back up with the Jersey Shoreans mid-fight, with Jwoww and Sammi coming to actual blows as Ronnie and MVP (Michael “The…
If plummeting temperatures have you dreaming of steamier situations, grab a pillow, make sure you’re wearing clean undies and head to Longmont tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. for the free monthly movie night hosted by the new Boulder branch of the Center for Sex Positive Culture. A double feature of sex-centered…
The brick-and-mortar movie rental store is a dying breed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t rent local. Louisville’s John Griffin has started a local kiosk movie business called Treehouse Movies. Right now he’s got one kiosk in Denver, at the Sunflower Market at 2880 S. Colorado Blvd., and three in…
Let’s say you’re trying to get to the top of Mount Rainier in Washington State. You’re walking along with your buddy across a snow bridge, and all of a sudden it collapses, plunging you into an 80-foot-deep crevasse, causing an avalanche and killing your buddy, leaving you stranded at the…
2011: Year in Preview. Bobbi Walker, owner of Walker Fine Art, has employed a clever way to create an automatic group show by putting together examples of work by all of the artists who will be featured in duets this year. The show looks good, but what’s really neat is…
John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole plops us down in the lives of Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart), fortyish bourgie marrieds rattling around an East Coast dream house. Becca and Howie’s young son was killed in an accident, and months later, the couple is trying to cope. Howie thinks…
When the MPAA handed Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating this fall, cynics suggested that the so-called kiss of death was better publicity for the gently experimental marriage drama than anything famously crafty distributor Harvey Weinstein could buy. When the rating was reversed last month — downgraded to an…
