Screen
Falling down 12 steps
The ubiquitous hyperbolic after-school-special type of dramatization of the perils of alcoholism has lost its teeth; it no longer delivers a social bite so much as it gets drool everywhere. Thus, in many ways, what Smashed wanted to do is something necessary, as we ...
Roundup of summer 2015
When it comes to cinema, there is no such thing as dilution. No matter how many times a franchise is rebooted, a classic remade or an individualistic work of art sequalized, cinema will always remain as singular and potent as those who make it...
A revival you can’t refuse
Some movies never grow old. They exist outside of time and space, always there, always waiting for us to return. The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II are two such movies and they return to the big screen Sunday, June 22 at Century Theatre in Boulder...
Weakling becomes hero
Uncle Sam Wants You!” the posters shouted during the 1940s, but what if you were too scrawny to pass the physical and fight for your country? That’s the dilemma faced by Brooklyn weakling Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in Captain America: The First Avenger...
‘And she was loved!’
With the wisdom of the wise and the smile of a sage, Toni Morrison sits before the camera. No background behind her, nothing in...
‘Life in plastic’
Storytelling is creativity within limitations. And when your story takes place in a fantasy world — be it with dragons, lightsabers or toys —...
All I need to get by
There weren’t any crowds in Park City, Utah, and the big studios may have stayed away, but the 2021 Sundance Film Festival proved that...
I see you, 2016
OH man, 2016 has gotta feel so nervous, knowing its elder sibling, 2015, was so flinging-flanging good. Father Time has to be like, “No,...
A star is born
One of the many pleasures of going to the movies is the discovery of new ideas, new voices and new faces. Last weekend, that...
You say you want a revolution?
The “99 percent vs. the 1 percent” analogy at work in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has all the subtlety of a funeral selfie. But it is precisely this lack of sophistication in message that may make this the most zeitgeist-capturing, intellectually resonant sci-fi ...
No one goes it alone
In his landmark study, “From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film,” Siegfried Kracauer put forth the theory that cinema is...
