Every sensible person knows that when Earth is eventually destroyed, it will be by a huge asteroid like the one that killed all the dinosaurs. We learned this mostly from Jerry Bruckheimer, but Jerry Bruckheimer probably learned it from the 1979 classic Meteor, the first movie ever about humans saving…
Bayer & Chisman. From the 1940s to the 1970s, Aspen’s Herbert Bayer was one of the premier artists in Colorado, and from the ’80s to the first decade of the 21st century, Denver’s Dale Chisman played a similar role. But beyond that, their work has little in common, with Bayer…
Isabelle Huppert’s cerebral, prickly, glacial screen presence — which she has calibrated throughout her career to portray gorgeously complex women — is never less than magnetic. That’s why Special Treatment is so disheartening. The film, starring Huppert, quickly telegraphs that its ideas are too shallow for a talent as deep…
Sure to be drowned out by the drum circles at Occupy Wall Street, writer-director J.C. Chandor’s lifeless Margin Call depicts roughly 36 hours at an unnamed Manhattan investment firm at the dawn of the 2008 financial freakout. Chandor’s debut feature audaciously asks us to empathize with obscenely overpaid risk analysts…
Standing outside his small-town Ohio home, his wife and child busy preparing breakfast inside, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) looks up at the ominous, slate-gray sky in the first scene of Take Shelter. The clouds open, raining down oily, piss-colored droplets. It’s end-of-days weather, a phenomenon that only Curtis seems to…
You can start planning now: The schedule for the 34th annual Starz Denver Film Festival, which runs November 2 through 13 at various venues throughout town, is now available online at the user-friendly Denver Film Society website. DFS member early ticketing opens Wednesday, October 19; the rest of the hoi…
The five-part “Women, War & Peace” spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones. Part two of this series, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, features 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee and her work in organizing the women of Liberia to unite, ultimately winning peace for their country…
Andrew Haigh’s IMDB filmography includes editing credits for Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Hannibal Rising. He’s also written and directed two films, the latest being Weekend, a movie about two gay men that has little sex, a good deal of drugs, and lots and lots of talk — without a…
When Christ failed to make a second earthly appearance on May 21, 2011, it probably came as a surprise to few — would-be prophet Harold Camping, the Biblical number-cruncher who predicted that date as the day of the Rapture, had been wrong about the world ending before, after all. But…
To most people, the construction at Union Station is only an eyesore made of dirt and debris that has forced the Amtrak station to move many blocks away. And Denver International Airport’s baggage system is only a danger to your luggage. But the Travel Channel’s new show, Off Limits, explores…
Anne Makepeace is quick to tell people that the Wampanoag is the tribe that greeted the Mayflower. After all, what better way to quickly illustrate how forgotten this tribe is? Almost everyone in America knows the people of the Mayflower broke bread with a Native American tribe, but most people…
Bayer & Chisman. From the 1940s to the 1970s, Aspen’s Herbert Bayer was one of the premier artists in Colorado, and from the ’80s to the first decade of the 21st century, Denver’s Dale Chisman played a similar role. But beyond that, their work has little in common, with Bayer…
There’s much to savor in director Patrick Takaya Solomon’s documentary Finding Joe, about the life — but mainly the work — of the late Joseph Campbell, iconic scholar of myths from around the world. (He coined Oprah’s favorite phrase, “Find your bliss.”) The film isn’t meant to be just an…
In hindsight, the 1984 hit Footloose — starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Herbert Ross — along with its contemporary, Flashdance, can be seen as the link between the old Hollywood model of a let’s-put-on-a-show musical, based on original songs brought to life in elaborate choreographed numbers, and the later…
The Mile High Horror Festival kicks off tomorrow night at the Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, with more than thirty films being shown across three days on two different screens. While you can pick up a weekend pass to check out all the festivities, not everyone is going to have…
Buy a red car and find someone young and spry to liven up your life. That’s what most people would do when staring down the precipice of a life crisis. I applied for The Real World online. Last Tuesday I got an e-mail telling me that I was a very…
What’s the scariest thing about Colorado? The haunted mountain resorts? The cemeteries-turned-city parks? The escort-loving, meth-using pastors? All of those may soon be trumped by the second annual Mile High Horror Film Festival, which takes over the Tivoli Starz Film Center October 7 through October 9. With this year’s edition…
The things I remember about going to the circus as a child are limited, but they are awesome. I distinctly recall riding an elephant — though my parents do not — and only recently have I accepted the vegetarian guilt that comes with that potentially false memory. This was before…
Bonny Lhotka & Norman Epp. This duet, the full title of which is Horizons: Bonny Lhotka & Norman Epp, brings together the internationally known Boulder-based digital artist with an up-and-coming Denver sculptor. Though to a great extent their individual bodies of works have decidedly different aims — Lhotka is technically…
“Want it…and watch out,” ruthless corporate veep Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) instructs younger associate Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) in Love Crime, a silly tale of boardroom humiliation. The final film from Alain Corneau, who died last year and is best known for 1991’s All the Mornings of the World, Love Crime…
Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a two-bit trainer traveling the state-fair circuit in a not-too-distant future. His line is robot fighting, a sport that has absorbed the audience for boxing, MMA and, apparently, demolition derby. After a tough match leaves Charlie ‘bot-less, he gets news that his ex-girlfriend, with whom…
A procedural on the political manipulation of medium and message, George Clooney’s fourth directorial effort is bookended with scenes of media-op prepping. In the first, Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), a thirty-year-old campaign advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Mike Morris (Clooney), fills in for his boss at the sound check for…
