Screen
Strangled love
Set in Scranton, Pa., and Brooklyn, N.Y., Blue Valentine depicts a working class marriage hanging by threads of resentment, contempt and love, a very tricky braid to unravel. At its best, the drama captures little bits and pieces of a relationship, the telltale signs...
John Hughes for kids
Released a year ago, the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie captured remarkably little of the sly charm of the Jeff Kinney books that line my son’s bookshelf. The film did, however, capture enough of the fan base to warrant a sequel. And here we are. And it’s a little ...
Home viewing: Boulder Environmental / Nature / Outdoor Film Festival
Even though our minds and wallets have been deeply distracted and impacted by the pandemic/economy/political divisiveness, the need for environmental change and protection has...
Harry Potter grows up
Much as I like the Paranormal Activity pictures for their unfashionable minimalism and quaintly Victorian lack of gore, it’s nice to get back to something like The Woman in Black — not authentic Victoriana, exactly (Susan Hill’s novel was published in 1983), and ...
Photographing philosophy
Would you like to see my girlfriend?” Nicholas Vreeland asks. Considering that Vreeland has been a chaste Buddhist monk for the past 28 years, you can bet that this “girlfriend” is not of the typical kind. Indeed, it is not. Vreeland’s girlfriend is a camera...
Meet the new boss
Dior. The name itself invokes the very highest of French fashion. One of the original members of haute couture, Christian Dior opened his Parisian house in December of 1946 when he was just 41. By February 1947, Dior launched “The New Look,” as Harper’s Bazaar editor...
It’s ‘Ghostbusters,’ whaddya want?
Sadly, but as expected, news that writer/director Paul Feig’s reboot of Ghostbusters would feature four women in the lead roles was met by the...
Let’s not be gods
Midway through Ex Machina, writer/director Alex Garland’s taut thinker, super genius inventor Nathan (Oscar Isaac) tells human guinea pig Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) that the invention of artificial intelligence was always a matter of when, not if. Here’s a thought: ...
‘Nothing’s gonna change my world’
Peter Parker was just another kid in New York City when he was bitten by a radioactive spider, bringing physical gifts (and a simultaneous...
Stuck in a bunker with you?
You can keep your Jason Voorhies and Freddy Kreuger. To me, nothing is more terrifying than an overweight, middle-aged, gun-loving, white man obsessed with...


















