Like The Imitation Game, The Man Who Knew Infinity is a Great Man biopic about a man most viewers have probably never heard of. Srinivasa Ramanujan was a brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician who in his brief time on this earth made seismic contributions to his field. That he’s largely unknown…
In an appreciation published in The Guardian a few days after the death of J.G. Ballard, in April 2009, Martin Amis noted that the paragon of New Wave science fiction was “remorselessly visual.” Ben Wheatley’s muddled adaptation of the dystopian 1975 novel High-Rise — one of many Ballard books that…
Throughout May, Wheel of Fortune is celebrating a few great American cities — and this week, it’s Denver’s turn to take a spin in the spotlight. After months of planning, fifteen local contestants flew out to Los Angeles in March to tape the Denver-themed shows, which start tonight. We don’t…
Vaxxed, the new “documentary” about the alleged connection between vaccines and autism, is directed by Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced doctor responsible for duping untold thousands of parents into believing vaccinations could give their children autism. This may not be news to anyone who’s followed the controversy surrounding the film’s abrupt…
According to her emails, Hillary Clinton has had an eye on Alicia Florrick since season one. As her pop-culture portraits go, The Good Wife has been a flattering one. Its protagonist first followed in the footsteps of many a political spouse by standing by her man, then relaunched her career,…
If you thought the billionaire played by Steve Carell in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher was eerie, please allow me to introduce you to the real John du Pont. A dangerous concoction of lonely and paranoid, du Pont was blessed with money and mobility and cursed with the kind of childhood that…
On the surface, there has been a lot of forward movement on television for black women. We’re now able to see an incredible breadth of black female characters, including Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson) on Empire, Rosalee (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) on Underground and Dr. Rainbow Johnson (Tracee Ellis Ross) on Black-ish…
It’s been two weeks (or a little over eleven hours and fourteen days as “Nothing Compares 2 U” lovingly time stamps) since we lost our sweet Prince, and many of us have worn out our DVDs and VHS copies of Purple Rain. That film, though based on Prince’s life, was written…
Denver’s a pretty great film town, but that doesn’t mean that all of cinema’s many niches and genres are equally well represented. You can always catch a blockbuster film at any neighborhood multiplex, and plenty of arthouse, indie and repertory fare is available around town. But the weird stuff is…
If nothing else, Captain America: Civil War stands as something of a corrective to this spring’s other superheroes-bludgeoning-each-other opus, Batman v Superman. While that film was severe and downcast, Civil War is expansive, at times even light. BvS strove to redefine its superheroes to fit newer, darker, borderline-sociopathic molds; Civil…
The lure of everything Cuba is strong. It’s in the news, on top of everyone’s travel list and in our movie theaters. But the recent films about Cuba aren’t exports from the still-embargoed country. Most come from visiting filmmakers. Irish director Paddy Breathnach captures a gorgeous portrait of Cuba with…
Is it too much to ask that all these holiday-themed rom-coms — Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve and now Mother’s Day — one day merge with the Halloween movies? Michael Myers might be the only one in either franchise with a truly cutting response to all the rhetorical musings about relationships romantic,…
It’s easy to think, based on the marketing, that the first feature film from acclaimed comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele will be a hundred minutes of an adorable kitten dressed in a do-rag and gold chain for easy laughs, but Keanu is so so much more than that…
Despite the snow showers, May is here. We can assume the flowers will arrive shortly, but in the meantime we don’t have to wait for some great geek events to pop up! This month offers up everything from the obligatory Star Wars celebrations (May the Fourth be with you!) to a celebration…
Music by Daenerys and the Targaryens, costumes and the first episode of Game of Thrones Season Six gave fans a taste of free blood shots, gore and new story lines at Nerd Riot’s GoT Watch Party at Stoney’s on Sunday night. Like what you see? The party continues weekly on Sunday…
April showers are about to give way to May flowers both on the ground and on the big screen, where the first of the summer movie season offerings will soon pop up. In chronological order, here are the best film events in Denver this May. 10. Denver Silent Film Festival…
Fairy tales were meant to be oral stories. Translating the tangents of old women in far-flung villages (whose chips on their shoulders about, say, their brother’s failed shipping business might inspire long asides about the shipping industry) into written texts doesn’t always make for the most linear, easy read. In…
Nearly every Alien movie begins the same way: in the vast loneliness of space, in a ship that’s running on its own. In the first film, Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), the camera slowly glides through the dark, lifeless corridors of the commercial towing vehicle Nostromo before locating the sleeping bodies…
The second season of Amazon’s Catastrophe might do for the #TGIF-style family sitcom of the late ‘80s and ‘90s what the first did for the ailing rom-com: open-mouthed resuscitation on the operating table after one too many Garry Marshall–fueled heart attacks like Valentine’s Day. (Or New Year’s Eve? It doesn’t…
Score one for going home again. After misfiring with Begin Again, a film that asked us to worry over a disillusioned A&R man’s efforts to coax a folk-pop album out of Keira Knightley, writer-director John Carney has turned back to the striving Irish of Once, his breakout hit. He’s also…
In a bold move, just two days after Film on the Rocks announced its 2016 season, it’s already made changes: It will now kick off two weeks earlier with a screening of Prince’s Purple Rain on Thursday, May 12, at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. And FOTR, put on by the Denver Film Society and…
In ’81 he accessorized his trench coat with high heels and bikini briefs. In ’84 that coat got dandified, high-collared and famously purple, Edwardian formalwear over a frilled tuxedo shirt over that wicked slick of chest hair. It was the get-up of a perv or a president, a look that…
