When filmmaker/breast enthusiast Russ Meyer passed away in 2004, he left two simple statements on his gravestone: “King of the Nudies” and “I Was Glad to Do It.” Indeed, Meyer infused such joy into the taboo world of exploitation films that every one of his titles seems less like work…
There are few hard-and-fast rules in screenwriting, but here’s one I think we can agree on: Something’s gone wrong if your crowd-pleasing family drama asks audiences to hope a child’s father proves to be a crackhead. That’s one baffling turn in Mike Binder’s Black or White, a movie about race…
While many of Oscar’s big shots clock in at more than two hours, some filmmakers remain committed to telling unique and inventive stories that don’t require viewers to set aside an entire night to enjoy. The Academy Award-nominated short films run the gamut of topics and tones. Yet together they…
Writer-director Stephen Belber’s inspiring, generous Match is so good that it’s like some kind of trick. In what can only be characterized as a verdant collaboration between the director and the irreplaceable Patrick Stewart, the film offers a vivid portrait of a huge-hearted Juilliard dance professor named Tobi Powell who…
Charles Parson and Collin Parson. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center museum director Blake Milteer has put together a major duet, Continuance: Charles and Collin Parson, taking advantage of the unusual circumstance in which a father and son are both committed contemporary artists. It makes sense to link Chuck to his…
Spanish has birthed one unique letter: ñ, pronounced “en-yay.” The squiggly line above the n is called a tilde. Twelfth-century Spanish scribes used the tilde to shorthand the pairing of the same letter in a word: nn, aa, etc. Of all the Spanish letters that once carried a tilde, ñ…
One of the most rewarding film-industry moves of the last few years came when Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International partnered to release all of the Academy Award -nominated short films in theaters, so that movie fans can catch up on the nominees before the February 22 awards ceremony. Starting Friday,…
No, Colorado is not Los Angeles or New York. But the homegrown films this state has to offer defy the expectations of moviegoers whose tastes are limited to Hollywood and Indiewood offerings. We have bold, original voices, untamed by industry standards. A host of recent documentaries have made national waves,…
Filmmaker Daniel Junge, who won an Academy Award in 2012 for the documentary short Saving Face, made his official Sundance Film Festival debut yesterday with his new documentary, Being Evel. And another Colorado filmmaker, Louie Psihoyos, was back at the iconic Utah festival this past weekend with his second doc…
Richard Linklater ended his feel-good Best Picture contender on a high. His star, eighteen-year-old would-be artist Mason, graduated high school and was ready to conquer the world. But what if Linklater had kept filming? And what if Mason wasn’t an actor, but a real teenage boy? Meet Samuel Klemke. He,…
Italian horror film maestro Dario Argento has been freaking out audiences since he first burst on the scene in 1970 with the first in a series of Hitchcock-infused thrillers whose titles matched their stylistic terrors: The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Cat o’ Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet…
Americans love their national parks. And Colorado people love, love, love Rocky Mountain National Park, a 416- square-mile expanse of towering peaks, glacial lakes, tundra, forests and meadows less than two hours’ drive from Denver. Despite being much smaller in size than Yellowstone or Yosemite, RMNP typically ranks among the…
Mortdecai is creeping into theaters with the flushed shame of a debutante who expects to be pelted with tomatoes. It’s a pity. In 1965, Mortdecai would be the hit of the year. Director David Koepp whips through this pop-colored caper about crooked art dealer Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) — one…
The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore’s great misfortune isn’t that it replaces The Colbert Report, but that it premieres after Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. The Colbert Report was sui generis, and will likely remain so, because such a series makes leviathan demands on its host: crackerjack comedic skills,…
Hitoshi Matsumoto’s R100 takes its name from the Japanese rating system, which proceeds thusly: R15, safe for fifteen-year-olds; R18, safe for adults; and now Matsumoto’s invented category, which, depending on a centenarian’s ticker, could refer to either a calming montage of pigeons or a gonzo sex comedy. If you guessed…
Most of us can’t imagine having a disease that tugs and tears at the very threads of who we are. When we wake up in the middle of the night with outlandish fears, we strike reassuring bargains with ourselves: If I lose my sight, I’ll still have music. If I…
Brilliant. If you have any interest in modernism or fine craft — even if you aren’t particularly interested in jewelry — you’ll find something to marvel over at the Denver Art Museum’s winter blockbuster Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century. The show is a visual marathon, with so many things…
The bi-coastal film pod continues in 2015! In New York, Village Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl, along with Voice film critic Stephanie Zacharek, connect via the magic of the Internet with LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson to discuss the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards, announced on January 15…
Jesus talked a lot about loving the underdog, the meek, the oppressed and the poor. He argued God is love and told his disciple to turn the other cheek. Jesus’s life ended in violence and bloodshed from which he could have liberated himself, but he chose not to fight –…
Anyone who loves Michael Mann movies — or even just the idea of Michael Mann movies — accepts that film style is a language and something more, a way of thinking, feeling and looking that goes beyond basic plotting, dialogue or character motivation. I can tell you pretty much everything…
In Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) — an astoundingly talented marksman credited with over 160 confirmed kills in Iraq — runs into a fellow veteran at a mechanic’s shop between deployments. The soldier shows Kyle an artificial leg and thanks him for saving his life…
Forget its generic title, its breakup setup and its indie-standard Brooklyn walk-and-talks: Writer/director Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior is the freshest comedy of life and love since Obvious Child. Hilarious and heartbroken, Akhavan stars as Shirin, a bisexual Iranian-American video artist just bounced from her lover’s Gowanus apartment. (Relish the memory…
