Screen
Team Jarmusch
It’s amazing how popularity can change perception. When Stephanie Meyer’s 2005 novel, Twilight, cracked The New York Times bestseller list, vampires were brought back into the mainstream in a big way. Beginning in 2008, Meyer’s series was adapted into five movies and...
The bacon of blockbusters
Hands down, my favorite discussion in the wake of Furious 7 doing to the box office what Vin Diesel does to elocution (which is to say, stomping it to oblivion): “Do we really need another Fast and Furious movie?” No. No, we do not. We also didn’t need to land on the...
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 ...
This year’s Oscar-nominated shorts are sublime
Just as the short story trembles in the footprint of the novel, the short film plays David to featurelength film Goliaths. But with the help of shiny, naked bald men, these wee bits of cinematic splendor step from the shadows and sling their short shots. And in the ...
My name is Marina Vidal
Marina Vidal (Daniela Vega, Chile’s first openly transgender actress and model) is a waitress with designs of being a singer. And with a voice...
‘We were there’
"Hollywood cinema has had a complicated relationship with race and ethnicity since its very beginning,” says Luis I. Reyes at the beginning of his...
High-flying fun
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is tremendous fun, non-stop action and an adventure film with an appealing story. The film starts with Dastan (William Foster), a beggar boy living by his wits in the bazaar in Persia, getting caught stealing. Seconds before he’...
A patient Western
At one point in Meek’s Cutoff, set in 1845, the frontier settler played by the excellent, plain-spoken Michelle Williams fires two warning shots after an alarming encounter with a Native American. Hurriedly she loads the rifle with gunpowder and ammunition, while ...
Such great heights
Great movies don’t require a signature shot, but it helps when they have one. What would Vertigo be without that dizzying dolly zoom? The...
Easy, breezy fun
I’m trying not to use the word ‘magical’,” Liz Marsh warned me as we sat down to discuss the upcoming season of the Boulder Outdoor Cinema (BOC), which opens on Saturday, July 12...
