Screen
Dancing without chemistry
The country-twang remake of Footloose strives to give us a more down-home experience than the original film...
Black humorless
Low-brow. Just expect it from Gulliver’s Travels. When Gulliver ( Jack Black) first arrives at the kingdom of Lilliput and puts out a raging fire by dropping his shorts and urinating, I was astonished by the audience laughter. This is a film unabashedly aimed at teen...
Emancipation examination
A humble suggestion: Force the chittering, self-serving partisans in Washington who increasingly prefer filibusters over floor votes to watch Lincoln. Director Steven Spielberg’s latest provides a character sketch, not of its titular president, but of America’s ...
Indifference wins the day
The best romantic comedies have a blithe, take-it-or-leave-it spirit. Larry Crowne has the opposite. It’s the neediest movie of 2011, and one of the phoniest...
Keep the lights on
It always begins with light. Be it an ancient myth or a modern movie, light carves away the darkness and gives form and shape...
Getting women in the room
Maybe it comes as no surprise, but sexism is alive and well in the film industry. Women filmmakers are often forced into alternative methods...
‘The play and adventure are one’
From Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, the Adventure Film Festival (AFF) returns to Boulder for its 12th annual celebration of those who “make their...
Aubrey Plaza hilarious in a wasted effort
Before anything else: How great is Aubrey Plaza, right? From her droll, intentionally weird character on NBC’s Parks and Recreation to her killer late-night TV interviews (just watch the last one with Conan O’Brien if you doubt), Plaza is deliciously and completely ...
Getting lazy about slackers
The Art of Getting By is a screen romance that echoes its title: It gets by. Barely. It’s another wan tale of an anti-social teen who finds himself irresistible to the sweetest, prettiest girl in school. But the film has flashes of wit and some interesting teen ...
