For those who like to keep their minds (and their Brunswicks) in the gutter, a screening of The Big Lebowski and a few lines of play at a downtown bowling alley should be just the thing this week. The 1998 movie by Ethan and Joel Coen (of Fargo fame) is,…
Chihuly. Michael De Marsche, president of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, has orchestrated the extravaganza Chihuly, a sprawling survey of the career of glass master Dale Chihuly. Working near Seattle, Chihuly is among the best-known glass artists of all time, right up there with Louis Comfort Tiffany and Paolo…
Roald Dahl’s inner child was evidently a contrary lad — precocious, dark-minded, contemptuous of adult supervision and fueled by a sense of justice that often proceeded via cruel whim. In Dahl’s twisty children’s stories, villains throw kids out of windows, beautiful women turn out to be hideous witches in disguise…
Since George Romero’s long-awaited Land of the Dead turned out to be a letdown, we’ll have to find our zombie-movie solace elsewhere. Thankfully, Romero’s been making movies for so long that not only has he inspired others to follow in his footsteps, but those others have begotten others still. Sam…
If Vince Vaughn puts any effort into what he’s doing, it doesn’t show, which is perhaps one of the benefits of always appearing to be hung over. The man probably has to check the bags under his eyes at the airport, and he’s about as in shape as a toddler’s…
British indie filmmaker Sally Potter, a former dancer, lyricist, and performance artist, clearly has a taste for adventure. In 1992 that led her to Orlando, a screen adaptation of the experimental Virginia Woolf novel about an Elizabethan nobleman who hangs around for 400 years, eventually morphing into a hip 20th-century…
If for no other reason, Happy Endings deserves its soft spot in our collective hearts for rescuing Tom Arnold from the why-are-they-now? scrap heap. The former Mr. Roseanne Barr plays Frank, a widower who falls for and sleeps with his son’s conniving would-be girlfriend Jude, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. And…
Me and You and Everyone We Know, the new film from writer/director/performance artist Miranda July, walked off with prizes at both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. An audience and critical favorite, it follows an ensemble cast of characters, each of whom is longing to connect with another human being…
Before its release in 1933, the bluenoses over at the Hays Office had their way with the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Baby Face, clipping more than five minutes of what was then thought to be steamy carnality from the original print. Happily (for most of us, anyway), the censored scenes remained…
Chihuly. Michael De Marsche, president of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, has orchestrated the extravaganza Chihuly, a sprawling survey of the career of glass master Dale Chihuly. Working near Seattle, Chihuly is among the best-known glass artists of all time, right up there with Louis Comfort Tiffany and Paolo…
Movies based on comic books have become dime-a-dozen events — appropriate given that the cover price of these titles was 10 cents when they debuted decades ago. It wasn’t so long ago Warner Bros. teased the release of Richard Donner’s Superman by insisting, “You’ll believe a man can fly”; now,…
About two-thirds of the way through A League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Chris Browne’s weirdly engaging documentary about professional bowling, the bad boy of the game, Pete Weber, looks straight into the camera and assures us: “I’m not an asshole.” Whether to believe Weber is an open question, given what we’ve…
Eros is not a single film but three, each roughly a half hour, joined in a common goal. The first segment was made by Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love) and the second by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich). The final piece, by any measure the climax, was…
If you’re short on reasons to be grateful these days, look no further than March of the Penguins, the astonishing, if imperfect, nature documentary from first-time director Luc Jacquet. Hard times may have befallen you, but at least you are not a penguin, an animal destined to repeat a devastating…
The popular Boulder Outdoor Cinema series got under way last month and continues through August 27. And a pair of immensely popular recent movies will be on view this week as BOC patrons loll before the screen on assorted couches, bean bags and yoga mats. On Friday, July 8, it’s…
Alden Mason, Kimberlee Sullivan and Lorey Hobbs. The changing of the seasons from spring to summer is what inspired William Biety, director of the Sandy Carson Gallery, to put together three solos, each comprising nature-based abstractions. Alden Mason marks the debut of the Washington artist, who is represented in this…
Quite simply and quite literally, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds is Close Encounters of the Third Kind turned inside-out: They’re still out there, only this time the aliens are out for our blood, which they spray all over the countryside like so much red paint…
So little time, so much trouble. In the 24-hour period that’s dissected in Heights, the first feature from Harvard/Cambridge/USC film-school-educated Chris Terrio, an aspiring Manhattan photographer named Isabel (Elizabeth Banks) gets cold feet about her upcoming marriage to a dull but pleasant lawyer named Jonathan (James Marsden); a needy Broadway…
Forget Mad Hot Ballroom. The real dance documentary hit of the summer is more likely to be Rize. After all, which do you think the kids are going to find more appealing: Formal steps that require suits, partners and schoolteachers; or shaking the booty and slamming into fellow dancers while…
It’s okay to be slightly afraid of Hungarian movies. Even critics don’t necessarily relish the thought of them or look upon Budapest as a hotbed of filmmaking. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to recall the last time there was a good movie from the land that gave us…
Martin Lawrence has never exactly been among the world’s more gifted comedians, yet his movies seem to keep raking in the cash, so there must be legions of loyal Lawrenceheads out there somewhere. But even they, who have made financial successes of Black Knight and Big Momma’s House and National…
A kind of criminal fairy tale, Benot Jacquot’s Tout de Suite recalls both the Godard New Wave classic Breathless and its American counterpart, Bonnie and Clyde. A restless rich girl named Lili (dramatically beautiful Isild Le Besco) takes up with a small-time Moroccan thief (Ouassini Embarek) after a botched bank…
