Seeing a living legend laid up in an oxygen tent shouldn’t be fun. But in Alan Hicks’s doc Keep On Keepin’ On, it somehow is. Now in his nineties, diabetic and facing the possible amputation of a leg, the great jazz trumpeter Clark Terry lies there jamming. He doesn’t have…
Second in Japan only to Takashi Miike as an outrageously prolific and wicked genre geyser, Sion Sono is most notorious here for the four-hour teen-perv epic Love Exposure (2011). The cut-artery farce Why Don’t You Play in Hell is less typical, and a good deal goofier, riffing on yakuza films…
If we’re honest with ourselves, the teaser-trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens looks better than the original Star Wars movies. That’s how this week’s Voice Film Club podcast opens, with your hosts Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek of the Village Voice and Amy Nicholson of LA Weekly. Talk then…
William Morris’s “New Wave the World Over” film series came to him out of necessity. Frustrated by the lack of global films included in conversations among friends and film buffs about the New Wave era of cinema, Morris saw an opportunity. “When I talk to other people who work in…
As soon as Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is shoved down your throat — whether you like it or not. But just because it’s the holiday season doesn’t mean everyone’s life is full of Kodak moments bubbling with seasonal cheer. Sometimes you may want to celebrate, but sometimes you’ve had your…
The Starz Denver Film Festival is over and the holidays have begun. This December, expect a flurry of films, including holiday fare, movies made by luminary students, one geared for people with sensory disorders, a few wildly experimental films, a Technicolor classic and a social documentary. Whether you’re a Scrooge…
Minor spoilers for the second episode of The Comeback’s sophomore season. It’s no mystery why The Comeback, which returned for its second season this past Sunday after a nine-year hiatus, never became a big hit for HBO. Other mockumentaries like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Modern Family have thrived,…
Can profundity be accidental? Marshall Curry’s documentary Point and Shoot is a study in naifdom that seems to think it’s about something else: masculinity, honor, war. But it’s mostly about the way Americans of means see the wider world as a self-help proving ground, an exotic backdrop against which to…
Let’s get this out of the way now: Kristen Stewart is fine in Camp X-Ray, the tough-minded/soft-hearted drama that packs America’s sweetheart off to Guantánamo Bay. The fact that such casting seems unlikely might be part of why she succeeds. Tasked with patrolling a cell block of detainees for twelve…
The third-greatest scourge of the earth, right after online comments sections and bedbugs, is the unfunny comedy sequel, which may be why you think you should skip Horrible Bosses 2. The miraculous surprise is that Horrible Bosses 2 isn’t terrible at all. It’s looser, breezier and more confident than its…
The du Pont family made its fortune selling gunpowder during the War of 1812, and soldiered on to invent everything ever worn by a cop: Kevlar, nylon, polyester, synthetic rubber. If you’ve cooked on Teflon pans, that money’s theirs, too. That means you’ve supported American patriotism, or at least heir…
Bob Knox and Michael Clapper. The William Havu Gallery is presenting simultaneous solos: Bob Knox: Real Abstract, which is made up of paintings, and Michael Clapper: Portals, which comprises sculptures. Knox is a New York artist; Clapper lives in Denver. The paintings mark various points of progression in Knox’s self-appointed…
Tales of the Old West continue to make up a significant portion of our cultural narrative, mostly because we still like to comfort ourselves with stories showing that ours is a land of opportunity. Making the trek to the American frontier promised a new life — or at the very…
Bill Cosby’s present is secure. Despite the seventeen women (so far) who have publicly come forward with notably similar allegations of drug-enabled sexual assault, the comedian received standing ovations for his stand-up performances in the Bahamas and in Florida recently. His comeback tour will likely continue over the next few…
Thanksgiving is a time not just for feasting, but family antics. Everyone has a story from the holiday, whether heartwarming or heartbreaking. This year, instead of focusing on the drama at the table, why not direct your attention to the silver screen? When you need a time-out from your family…
Our Starz Denver Film Festival opening days roundup noted that the above-average quality of the screenings I caught offered compensation for weak attendance at numerous high-profile events. I wasn’t quite so lucky over the course of the fest’s last week-plus, but Keep On Keepin’ On, a documentary with deep Colorado…
Avant-garde film legend Stan Brakhage has been both mythologized and demonized. But few deny he was an unstoppable cinematic force, and his best-known works — Window Water Baby Moving, Mothlight, The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes and Dog Star Man — are critical parts of the avant-garde film…
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 spotlights selections for November 21 (Watchers of the Sky), November…
Can The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 keep up with the first two films? Why was the final book split into two movies? Does Katniss even want to be part of this revolution? On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, we discuss all things Hunger Games before moving onto a…
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 spotlights Silenced. See also: The Ten Best Movie Events in…
Over the first two Hunger Games films, we’ve watched coal miner’s daughter Katniss Everdeen become the pawn, then the pest, of the Capitol, whose President Snow (Donald Sutherland) has enslaved the adults of the twelve poorer Districts and annually commanded that they together sacrifice 24 of their children to probable…
Writer/director John Herzfeld (15 Minutes, Two of a Kind) earnestly tries but spectacularly fails to dilute the acrid pretentiousness of Reach Me, an everything-is-connected melodrama, by cutting his characters’ pseudo-enlightened philosophizing with goony broad humor. Herzfeld wants ideal viewers to identify with Roger (Kevin Connolly), an online yellow journalist who…
