Denver - News - The Citizen Kane of Crap

Most Popular

Most Commented

News

A Cold Case Frozen in Time

Until this cold case heats up, Sharon Skiba is lost in limbo.
CU Hires Three Pulitzer Winners

Some of newspapering's best and brightest are trading journalism for academia — including three Pulitzer winners hired at CU.
Shakeup in Denver Radio

Denver radio's getting a shakeup, with more alterations on the horizon. But do any of the switches qualify as improvements?
Sazza

If you must go for gourmet pizza, go to Sazza.
Arapahoe County DA Charges Death-Penalty Fees to the State

How does DA Carol Chambers beat the high cost of a death-penalty prosecution? By billing the prison system.

A Cold Case Frozen in Time (10)

Until this cold case heats up, Sharon Skiba is lost in limbo.
Con Artist Gives Funny Cause for Pregnant Pause (7)

Would you pay $20 to get a scam artist off your front porch?
Big Trouble (8)

Gary Haney was living the high life until meth took him down.
The Magnet Mafia Sticks to Street Art (5)

Matt Feeney and Harrison Nealey have a new way for artists to stick it to the city.
To the Max (5)

A publicity-hungry student shows how easy it is to become a media darling -- with a little help from CU.

Thinning Crowds

It's always dead at The Club.
Geek Chic

No More Heroes is hip, bloody, and indispensable.
Hell, Yes

Dante's inferno rages on in Devil May Cry 4.
Move Along, Kids
Laughing Pains

"Most Popular" tools sponsored by:

Blogs

Demolition Begins on the Dunes Motel
03:13PM 03/12/08
From Web to TV: Which eSensations Should Get Their Own Shows?
02:07PM 03/12/08
Last Night...Xiu Xiu, Thao Nguyen, Slight Harp @ Hi-Dive
10:32AM 03/12/08
Q&A With Eric Elbogen of Say Hi
06:41AM 03/12/08
Look of the Day - Christina
03:13PM 03/12/08
Yummsies: For the Baby Who Has It All
11:27AM 03/11/08
Crowded Cowboy Caucuses
04:43PM 03/10/08
Delegating Denver #34 of 56: New Jersey
12:03PM 03/10/08

Be Social

What we are writing about

National Features

Houston Press

"It Was Like an Armageddon Movie"

For days after Hurricane Rita, a Texas prison was hell on earth.
By Chris Vogel
SF Weekly

The Candidate

Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.
By Matt Smith
The Pitch

How Not To Be a Rap Star

First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.
By Nadia Pflaum
Village Voice

Project Runaway

What becomes a gossip columnist most?
By Michael Musto

The Citizen Kane of Crap

By Robert Wilonsky , Jordan Harper , Michael Atkinson , and Jim Ridley

Published: June 29, 2006

The Devil's Sword (Mondo Macabro)

Barry Prima, like you've never seen him before.

Subject(s): Caché , Find Me Guilty , The Devil's Sword , 1000 Years of Popular Music

Few trash movies live up to their reputation, but here's a balls-out wonder that surpasses it. Grab a 12-pack of Bintang and cue up this jaw-unhinging slab of Indonesian sword-and-sorcery circa 1983 -- a start-to-finish feast of martial arts, mullets, flying heads, vestal virgins, dry-ice fog, and discount psychedelia, accompanied by a synth-cheese score that threatens any second to bust into Heart's "These Dreams." Barry Prima, the Patrick Swayze of Jakarta, plays it cool as the mystical ass-kicker who defies the Crocodile Queen and her rubber-suited minions to seize a super-powered sword. Words can't do the movie justice, unless they're blaring from a drive-in speaker. SEE! Exploding mushrooms! Interpretive dance! A death battle between a flying guillotine and a witch! HEAR! Endlessly quotable dialogue, such as "You polluted bitch-hound!" Essential. -- Jim Ridley

Find Me Guilty (Fox)

Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Twelve Angry Men) is one of the great Hollywood directors, but Good Lord, his latest film is like a birdhouse built by a retired architect. Everything feels small and cheap, like a movie-of-the-week with f-bombs -- and still it's never less than watchable. A courtroom comedy based on a true story, it stars Vin Diesel as a mobster who defends himself in a 20-defendant, 73-count racketeering trial. There's no drama, and the laughs rarely rise above a chuckle, but the movie's enough fun to make you forget you're rooting for real-life mobsters to beat the rap. Diesel is charming, but showing up with a paunch, fake hair, and old-guy makeup doesn't exactly signal that next great step. This should feel like an end-of-career film for eighty-something Lumet, but for Diesel? -- Jordan Harper

Caché (Sony)

Cool and simple, but resonating invisibly out into our lives like an x-ray, Michael Haneke's Caché (Hidden) is a mystery wrapped in a tangle of sightlines -- you are rarely confident about what you're watching and never sure that watching will be enough. A Parisian couple (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) are inexplicably haunted by videotapes taken of them, by cameras that cannot have been present; eventually, the ensuing paranoia begins not only to unravel their family, but to reveal sins of the past. All the while, Haneke implicates us in the surveillance; we're never sure if what we're watching is live or Memorex, and whether the point of view is ours or someone else's. Caché has a devilish structure that makes every cut an occasion for what-is-it-now heebie-jeebies. -- Michael Atkinson

1000 Years of Popular Music (Cooking Vinyl)

"I've never thought of you as an entertainer," Richard Thompson is told during a break in this concert film shot at Bimbo's in San Fran, where The Greatest Living Singer-Songwriter starts with a circa-1260 ditty and ends with a Bowling for Soup single. It's not meant as an insult; the interviewer just means the former Fairport Conventioneer doesn't pander, hence the playlist of 22 ancient tunes ("Blackleg Miner") and top-of-the-poppers ("Oops!...I Did It Again") and in-betweeners that all sound right out of Thompson's own kit bag. The oldies are goodies, but it's the weight he brings to the disposable entries that makes this folk-rockumentary indispensable. Included are two audio discs and a wonderfully annotated booklet; of Ray Davies's "See My Friends" he writes, "Usually considered the first 'oriental' pop song." Uh, okay. -- Robert Wilonsky

Write Your Comment

News

Most Popular

Until this cold case heats up, Sharon Skiba is lost in limbo.

Some of newspapering's best and brightest are trading journalism for academia — including three Pulitzer winners hired at CU.

Denver radio's getting a shakeup, with more alterations on the horizon. But do any of the switches qualify as improvements?

If you must go for gourmet pizza, go to Sazza.

How does DA Carol Chambers beat the high cost of a death-penalty prosecution? By billing the prison system.

Until this cold case heats up, Sharon Skiba is lost in limbo.

Would you pay $20 to get a scam artist off your front porch?

Gary Haney was living the high life until meth took him down.

Matt Feeney and Harrison Nealey have a new way for artists to stick it to the city.

A publicity-hungry student shows how easy it is to become a media darling -- with a little help from CU.

It's always dead at The Club.

No More Heroes is hip, bloody, and indispensable.

Dante's inferno rages on in Devil May Cry 4.

Recent Articles By Robert Wilonsky

True or false, heist flick The Bank Job is too much fun to fact-check.

Will Ferrell’s umpteenth sports comedy is only half bad. His half.

Michel Gondry attempts to celebrate DIY filmmaking but comes up short, stale and flat.

Recent Articles By Jordan Harper

Recent Articles By Michael Atkinson

Michael Apted's drama of aging approaches a half-century.

A Road Map of the Soul: The Complete Kieslowski gets to the art of the matter.

King is a faithful adaptation that drowns in ponderous metaphors.

An Almod� var retrospective plays it safe and irons out the kinks.

David Mamet leads William Macy into a sex-fueled hell.

Recent Articles By Jim Ridley

Michael Haneke and his brutal home invaders return to implicate you, again.

Bringing zombie horror to the Heartland, The Signal comes through loud and clear.

Twenty years later, our one-man military machine’s still going Rambo.

Michael Haneke and his brutal home invaders return to implicate you, again.

Don't blame Michael Haneke if you don't like what you see.

A street hustler sells his child, then fights to undo his mistake.

An unseen stalker threatens a family in the French thriller Caché.

National Features

Houston Press

SF Weekly

The Pitch

Village Voice

The Citizen Kane of Crap

By Robert Wilonsky , Jordan Harper , Michael Atkinson , and Jim Ridley

Barry Prima, like you've never seen him before.

Subject(s): Caché , Find Me Guilty , The Devil's Sword , 1000 Years of Popular Music

Westword Insiders