Screen
8-bit-o’-honey
For a generation weaned on more Mario than Mother Goose, Wreck-It Ralph has been a long time coming. An 8-bit fairy tale with a burly bruiser in the role of the misunderstood princess, it skews a tad more prepubescent than Pixar but shares similar DNA. Writers ...
Speaking of unholy abominations…
Two options: 1 — People legitimately loved The Witch after it screened at Sundance and have hyped it because of a passion I simply...
Passing jerks
Reduced to butt-baring eye candy, Passengers feels like Chris Pratt was made to do a Game of Thrones-esque “Walk of Shame.” What’s that, Chris?...
White people nearly died
The 2004 tsunami that struck Eastern Asia was the sixth deadliest “act of God” in recorded history and quieted just fewer than 300,000 lives. The first major motion picture to tackle the subject, The Impossible, is about a group of white folks who get injured and ...
Unmixed tape
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 feels like a suitor who discovered that his beloved enjoys chocolate and then filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool...
‘The Wolverine:’ Better Orient-ed
X-Men Origins: Wolverine was the kind of movie that is released with apologies and finger-pointing. After his first solo stint landed with the grace and majesty of a wet fart, odds were stacked against a sequel for Wolvie. But if Hugh Jackman can forcibly warble Les ...
Death or psychosis
You have to let go of the living,” says the funeral director played by Liam Neeson to Anna, the dead schoolteacher in the red slip, played by Christina Ricci, in the new thriller After.Life. He sounds like the stage manager in a particularly grim production of Our ...
Many unhappy returns
The hackneyed, half-assed backstory for the lead character in Happy Death Day involves the tragic loss of her mother, which doesn’t actually feel sad...
Grown up but not good
Grown Ups is a sure thing — a film you think you’ve seen before, and probably saw somewhere a second time, so why not another? Actors, particularly stage actors in longrunning plays, strive for “the illusion of the first time.” High-concept comedies like Grown Ups ...
Reel to reel | Week of July 4, 2013
The BolderLife Festival films are showing this week at the SIE Film Center. For a full listing of the films go to denverfilm.org...
