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…
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…
Puncture is proudly “Based on a True Story.” As is so often the case, this means an indifference to “true” human relationships in favor of crusading self-righteousness. In this instance, the cause is life-saving no-stick syringes, which, despite saving lives, are not beloved by Big Pharm. The upstart personal-injury firm…
Does anyone under the age of fifty even remember the man who more or less created the FBI and successfully ran the agency for nearly half a century? Patriot, scoundrel, genius of self-promotion, gang-buster, red-baiter, blackmailer, proponent of the fingerprint, apostle of the wiretap, keeper of the crypt and momma’s…
Sometimes it’s easier for life to imitate art than vice versa. Witness French cartoonist Joann Sfar’s first feature, an ambitious attempt to cage the career of legendary French singer-songwriter-scamp Serge Gainsbourg (1928-91), né Lucien Ginsburg, within the confines of a commercial showbiz biopic. Sfar’s Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is itself…
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. Withey shares today’s choice — Tyrannosaur — on The Latest Word. To…
The Starz Denver Film Festival’s Big Night has become a showcase for future Academy Award nominees — Juno, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours and The Last Station among them. And there’s little doubt this streak will continue. The odds of The Descendants failing to generate award-season love are essentially nil, as…
Colorado-based photographer Pete McBride’s film Chasing Water, the companion to his book The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict, won the Adventure Through Activism Award over the weekend at the 2011 Adventure Film Festival in Boulder, one of two $500 cash prizes awarded this year (see trailer at www.PeteMcBride.com). The other…
The Starz Denver Film Festival offers the chance to hear directly from filmmakers and, sometimes, a film’s subject. An example: The Friday showing of Wish Me Away, a new doc about country singer Chely Wright’s decision to come out as a lesbian. The film was interesting, but better yet was…
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. Today, he shares choices for Friday through Sunday, November 4-6: The Fairy,…
“It’s a forced near-death experience,” says Nick Polizzi about Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink used in the Amazon region to cure everything from depression to cancer. Polizzi the Denver-based director of the Sacred Science, a documentary which takes eight very sick people from the United States and Australia and drops them…
Adam Leech, who owns Leechpit, a vintage clothing and collectibles store in Colorado Springs, has been obsessed for years by an unusual folk art form called hobo nickels. Starting with buffalo nickels, which were made by the U.S. Mint from 1913 to 1938, hobo nickel artists carve their own caricatures,…
Director Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, featured at the 2011 Starz Denver Film Festival, is a feel-bad movie that’s been declared a masterpiece. So universal has been the acclaim that anyone who begs to differ is in danger of being declared an ignoramus or a philistine. But what the hell: I’ll…
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. Here, he shares his take on tonight’s opener at Denver FilmCenter/Colfax: Melancholia…
