The Oscar-winning screenwriter whose exploits are the subject of the upcoming biopic Trumbo, opening November 6 across the region, would be the first to snort at the thought of his life becoming Hollywood fodder. Then he would take the money and write the script himself. In recent years, Dalton Trumbo…
In its very first scene, Aziz Ansari’s new Netflix series, Master of None, presents something never before seen on TV: an Asian-American male romantic lead at the center of his own series. Granted, that scene is hardly sexy: A broken condom puts the brakes on a bar hook-up between Dev…
The Muppets doesn’t work, exactly, but I’m still watching. As a relative outsider to the 60-year Muppets franchise, I’ve long suspected that early imprinting is the key to loving Jim Henson’s gaudy, unblinking rags. I’ve never felt a particular need to watch pieces of felt tell Borscht Belt–style jokes, and…
Yes, it’s 3-D computer animation, and yes, it shows us more of the face of Charlie Brown’s Little Red-Haired Girl than you ever thought you would see. But the news, for the most part, is good: The Peanuts Movie is much closer in spirit to Charles Schulz’s half-century comic-strip masterpiece…
Because women are particularly beguiling when viewed from behind, the camera loves to follow them: Anyone who’s watched James Stewart’s lovesick detective trailing Kim Novak, a platinum dream poured into a pale-gray flannel hourglass, understands the voyeurism at the heart of Vertigo. With Spectre — the 24th James Bond picture…
T The John Cassavetes Award, established in 1989 in collaboration with Cassavetes’s widow, Gena Rowlands, is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the world of filmmaking and whose work reflects the spirit of the late filmmaker. The award was first presented to Steven Soderberg;…
Out with the creeps and crawlies of October: November opens the floodgates to all those movies you’ll see advertised as “The Best Film of the Year!” To counter all those new, end-of-the-year releases from the studios, our favorite repertory houses have come up with some great programming of classics and…
After October ends, the next holiday on the calendar is Thanksgiving — and there are many reasons to be thankful for being a geek here in Denver. November may lack the nerd cred of October — Thanksgiving is a pale substitute for Halloween, even if you include an MST3K Turkey Day…
Before Anthony Bourdain published Kitchen Confidential, in 2000, mere mortals who simply eat in restaurants had little idea about the drinking, debauchery and drug use rampant among the folks responsible for getting their fettuccine Alfredo to the table. The book was eye-opening if true, and a rambunctious, vicarious pleasure even…
The most effective scene in James Vanderbilt’s brisk, outraged Truth is one that will be familiar to anyone who has ever sat in a room where editors and reporters are breaking down an investigative story. The reporters — here, 60 Minutes researchers played by Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss and Topher…
Thirty-six-year-old Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva, the writer-director and star of the comedy Nasty Baby, is himself an enfant terrible. In eight years he’s made six eclectic films, his own wicked twists disguised in what looked like the usual arthouse tropes. The Maid, his American breakthrough, looked like a benign Latin…
David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis is a horror film wrapped in fast-talking political comedy. Watching Sandra Bullock, as ruthless campaign manager Jane, flog her uncharismatic candidate for Bolivia’s next president, I snickered at her knowing quips. Asked by an off-screen TV interviewer (the film’s awkward framing device) to…
Lenny Abrahamson’s shattering drama Room borrows its fictional plot from the tabloids and strips it of sensationalism. Seven years ago, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) snatched seventeen-year-old Joy (Brie Larson) and stashed her in his backyard shed. Two years later, she bore their son. The door stayed locked. Now five, Jack…
Die-hard Rocky Horror fans got the full treatment when Colorado’s Elusive Ingredient stage re-enactors did the Time Warp again at Saturday night’s screening of the campy cult classic. Photographer Brandon Marshall caught these pics of all the fun. ]Now see the full Rocky Horror Picture Show slide show. …
In the fall of 1991, Jennifer “JP” McPherson was putting on her makeup and rounding up the Transylvanians for their midnight production at <em>The Rocky Horror Picture Show</em> at the Esquire Theatre. She was the cast manager for the troupe and was about to take the stage as a very pregnant…
Start lining up your favorite babysitter, packing to-go meals and stocking up on eyedrops, because tickets for the 38th annual Denver Film Festival, which runs from November 4 through November 15, are officially on sale today. This year’s schedule, which boasts over 250 films from 39 different countries, is a…
In his 2014 book Difficult Men, journalist Brett Martin identifies bad-boy antiheroes as the defining feature of our current “Golden Age” of television. Tony Soprano, Don Draper and The Wire’s Omar Little dazzle with their multifaceted complexity: How deep the furrow in Tony’s troubled brow! How pensive the trail of…
Critics lampoon him as a fast/furious lug nut, a hunk of well-oiled meat who doesn’t so much act as ka-thunk his face and body through its limited gears. To hell with them. Vin Diesel may not run smoothly, but he runs with purpose and conviction, and any line of dialogue…
Sherlock Holmes is the most popular character in English literature, and the one most frequently portrayed in film history. More than seventy actors have played him in over 200 films and radio and TV series. Sometimes it seems that any actor in need of a hit just throws on an…
Adventurer, survivalist and outdoor guru Bear Grylls is the star of Running Wild with Bear Grylls, now in its second season with NBC. On each episode, viewers watch Grylls take A-list celebrities, TV stars and even a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Drew Brees, into untamed and untouched areas around the globe for a…
Where will you be at 4:29 p.m. on October 21, 2015? To legions of Back to the Future fans all over globe, that’s the exact time and date when Doc Brown and Marty McFly zoom into the future in Back to the Future II, the first sequel in the cult-favorite…
Quick! Name the movie where Bill Murray plays a proudly shabby dude who acts like a prick for an hour, and then, for reasons of narrative convention rather than character-based truth, shambles toward either heroism or some vague be-nicer enlightenment. Maybe a tougher challenge would be to name the Bill…
