Screen
Reel to reel | Week of November 07, 2013
Films showing during the Starz Denver Film Festival, Nov. 6-17...
Sexually transmitted ignorance
Writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows is an alarmingly well-reviewed throwback horror movie that follows Jay Height (Maika Monroe), whose vagina gets cursed by Satan after she does it with her boyfriend. He straps her to a chair and explains she’s got ...
Sorry, Malaysian tourism industry!
No Escape feels like it was written by somebody who violently hates the entire Asian continent. Culled from every xenophobic stereotype, down to the eating of dogs, the film plays like a two-hour anti-tourism ad: “Malaysia, You’ll Probably Die Here.” Setting aside ...
Featherweight flick
Southpaw is a boxing movie with, dare I say, far too much boxing in it. I realize that sounds strange, but director Antoine Fuqua’s new movie isn’t very interested in its extended training montages or improbable fight scenes — and that’s not entirely a dig. ...
Unlucky harms
Americans can barely be bothered to care about civil unrest and violence currently unfolding on their own soil, let alone on another continent… let alone a conflict that has since resolved years ago. Thus, even though the lasting peace that was brokered between ...
No big bang
In 1965, Stephen Hawking wrote his first ground-breaking thesis and wed Jane Wilde. His paper argued that if a star can collapse inwards to form a singularity, then a singularity can explode back outward. The Theory of Everything explores this same theory, only ...
On agents and agency
Melissa McCarthy is immensely talented, armed with a stunning repertoire of acting skills. So, of course, Hollywood sees her and claps its collective hands together, yelling “Make the funny lady fall down again!” Spy is writer/director (and frequent McCarthy ...
reel to reel | Week of May 17, 2012
4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH In a large apartment high above the city lives a couple. They’re in love. She’s a painter, he’s a successful actor. Just a normal afternoon — except that this isn’t a normal afternoon, for them or anyone else. Because tomorrow, at 4:44 a.m., ...
Cons, vexing
Despite its title and the fact that Will Smith continually mouth-dumps exposition about how pulling a con requires attention to detail, Focus is hella sloppy. It’s not just that genuinely thrilling “who’s playing who” moments bump up against a holistically ...
















