Shark Tale is an animated film, though after you see it you might wonder whether the term is intended as oxymoronic. Put simply, it has no life in it at all. Not even the kids roped into an afternoon preview screening seemed terribly interested. Perhaps they’ve grown tired of computer-made…
It’s the tenth anniversary of John Duigan’s smart, sensual and superb movie Sirens, and I’m reflecting on the comment of a female friend when I asked her how she liked it. At the time, in American pop culture, we were experiencing the last original gasps of the riot-grrrl movement, and…
In case you missed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind earlier this year — or can’t remember if you saw it or not — the University of Colorado International Film Series stands ready to fix you up. One of the quirkiest romantic comedies of recent years, it features rubber-faced Jim…
digital.movement.04. Tracy Weil, owner of the weilworks gallery, has a passion for computer-aided art. That’s why he organized digital.movement.04: Installations in video, sound & digital animation, the first in a planned series of annuals featuring art that employs digital technologies in its creation. Weil put out a call for entries…
Ash is feeling a little bit under the weather, so I’ll be taking charge.” So says Shaun (Simon Pegg) to his valiant crew of appliance salespeople, but if you don’t get the real meaning, you’re probably not part of the target audience for Shaun of the Dead. Ash, for the…
According to the press notes, the title character of Gozu is “a demon said to exist in hell. It has the head of a cow and body of human .” Director Takashi Miike says he got this information from an authoritative Japanese dictionary, but it isn’t necessary to know the…
The very best thing about A Dirty Shame, a giddy sex farce from John Waters, is the credits. What’s not to love about a list of characters that includes “Sylvia Stickles,” “Marge the Neuter,” “Fat Fuck Frank,” “Cow Patty” and “Tire Lick Boy”? The soundtrack, too, bears comic fruit, with…
Essayist. Playwright. Radio personality. Librettist. Actor. Novelist. Now, with Bright Young Things, the inimitable British wit Stephen Fry debuts as feature screenwriter and director. Best known here in the colonies either as Jeeves (opposite Hugh Laurie) in Jeeves and Wooster, or as Peter in Peter’s Friends, or possibly as Oscar…
The Boulder Public Library’s admirable and far-ranging film program is presenting “History and Development of the Documentary Film,” featuring works by such disparate practitioners of the non-fiction art as the father of them all, Robert Flaherty, John Huston (in his wartime role as a documentarian for the U.S. Army) and…
digital.movement.04. Tracy Weil, owner of the weilworks gallery, has a passion for computer-aided art. That’s why he organized digital.movement.04: Installations in video, sound & digital animation, the first in a planned series of annuals featuring art that employs digital technologies in its creation. Weil put out a call for entries…
Some of the best performances of the year can be found in Mean Creek, a small independent film that marks the auspicious feature debut of 31-year-old writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes. The film, an ensemble drama with a relatively unknown cast, looks at six kids and what happens when an innocent…
If Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence were a live-action sequel, there would be a lot of gossip about star histrionics, creative conflicts and so forth. Since the original Ghost in the Shell, first released nearly ten years ago, made an anime icon out of its star, the frequently nude…
Fortune smiles on groovy egregiousness. In the case of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the filmmakers’ investment in their weird visions is wildly unorthodox, but the payoff is oddly satisfying. The movie features myriad killer robots, raucous underwater dogfights, and Laurence Olivier’s best work since he died fifteen…
Mr. 3000 has low aspirations, which suits it well. It’s about a 47-year-old baseball player trying to get three meager hits and the team for which he plays trying to climb out of fifth place and into third by the season’s rapidly approaching end. Not much to root for, is…
It’s a good bet that some of the locals are horrified, or terrified, but here you have it: the Pikes Peak Lavender Film Festival, whose stated mission is “bringing quality international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender films to Colorado Springs.” That this weekend’s event is the fifth annual Lavender says…
digital.movement.04. Tracy Weil, owner of the weilworks gallery has a passion for computer-aided art. That’s why he organized digital.movement.04: Installations in video, sound & digital animation, the first in a planned series of annuals that will feature art that employs digital technologies in its creation. Weil began by putting out…
In this hour of enmity and bitterness, we Americans appear to be totally fed up with each other. Post-9/11 and mid-Iraq, the national political debate has been reduced to a nasty civil war that ruins friendships, stops casual dinner chats cold and, if I don’t miss my guess, gladdens the…
The most crucial piece of equipment in Hollywood is obviously not the movie camera. It’s not the casting couch. Not even the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud or the personal trainer. It’s the Xerox machine — which was preceded by carbon paper. That’s why, over the years, we have had three Mrs…
The future is almost here. At least it is according to screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce (Pandaemonium) and director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People), two cinematic visionaries whose combined vision in Code 46 sparks tremendous intrigue — and unrest. At once a weirdly familiar sci-fi trip, a bleak romance, a…
The first of the University of Colorado Film Studies program’s Goldfarb and Grillo Awards — students will win $12,000 this academic year — will be presented this week at the fall Student Awards Showcase. The prizes, in the words of the presenters, “are designed to encourage excellence in filmmaking and…
Dots, Blobs and Angels. Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art is presenting an enormous solo that is dedicated to the late David Rigsby, an artist who played a big part in the local art scene in the ’70s and ’80s. The exhibit was organized by director Cydney Payton, who installed it…
In Victorian England, thousands of novels were published every year. Of the few that have endured, perhaps none is more worthy of a film adaptation than Vanity Fair, if for no other reason than this: It’s a chore to read. Clocking in at 850 pages, with frequent excursions into unrelated…
