It had been more than two decades between films for Alejandro Jodorowsky, so when the legendary director released The Dance of Reality this year, booking it for the International Film Series was a no-brainer. “His seminal place in the pantheon of art-house directors and good reception at Cannes and such…
Stories about a ragtag group of survivors braving a zombie apocalypse are everywhere, but such scenes are not the only way to spot a great zombie saga. After all, that’s only half the story. Haven’t you ever wondered how the other half lives (or unlives, as it were)? See also:…
The world is kind of scary right now. The police and the military are becoming indistinguishable from one another, as they share ever more weapons, gear and tactics. Major American cities, like Detroit, are being allowed to devolve into the kind of post-apocalyptic shitholes we’re used to seeing in war…
In a battle of sideshow acts, only one can be crowned the weirdest in the world. And regardless of who that turns out to be, it’s the audience that will really win at tonight’s Oh No Variety Show Vs. Faded Freakshow: A Stunt Show to the Death. No matter how…
Terry Gilliam’s career has been marked by films that are both difficult and brilliant. His best work offers glimpses of strange worlds that seem fantastical but upon further inspection are simply twisted reflections of reality. His latest, The Zero Theorem, about a computer programmer searching for the meaning of life…
Most action movies barely work as brainless entertainment, so when you come across the rare example that works on multiple levels, it’s important to cherish it. Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 masterpiece, RoboCop, is one such film. “RoboCop is a lot of things,” says Keith Garcia, creative manager for the Alamo Drafthouse…
Zombies and booze go great together because, well, booze goes great with everything. Besides, when the undead are clawing at your door, doing their best to feast on your entrails and you’re trapped inside with no possible escape, do you want to face that fate sober? No. No, you do…
I will never forget the first time I saw Phantasm. How could I? It haunted me for years afterward. I was maybe seven or eight years old, surely no older than nine. My dad was watching it, probably on HBO, because I think it was the only movie channel we…
We’d all like to imagine we’ll be zombie-murdering heroes when the dead walk the earth, but the truth is that most of us will just want to hole up somewhere and drink until it’s over. Finally, there’s an event aimed at those willing to embrace a drunken slide into the…
Terry Gilliam fans have reason to be very happy — not only does he have a brand-new film, The Zero Theorem, opening in just over a week, but this week the International Film Series is showing two of his classic movies — Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The…
In the past week, two important, interrelated gaming stories broke in the mainstream media. The first was a relatively innocuous-seeming demographic trend report about adult women overtaking adolescent boys as the largest segment of gamers. The second was about feminist game commentator Anita Sarkeesian being forced to leave her home…
The Found Footage Festival has been bringing the gospel of weird-ass VHS footage — from how-to-cybersex videos to vintage home-shopping insanity — to the masses for an entire decade. And yet it doesn’t look like the fest is going to run out of new material. The latest iteration of the…
Geeks love art, even if the art they love is more often found on vintage film posters and in comics than on gallery walls. Of course, there’s no real reason that entertainment art like this can’t hang on gallery walls, as Hall of Justice owner Zac Conley will tell you…
The Found Footage Festival has been bringing the gospel of weird-ass VHS footage — from how-to-cybersex videos to vintage home-shopping insanity — to the masses for an entire decade. And yet it doesn’t look like the fest is going to run out of new material. The latest iteration of the…
Denver Film Society programming manager Ernie Quiroz has been on the job for a year now. In that time, he’s learned that Denver film audiences are nothing if not surprising. “There’s some films that I did that I thought would go over great, and just utterly bombed,” he says. “And…
School’s back in session — bad news for the young, great news for parents — and fall is almost here. The end of summer is always a little heartbreaking, but even as the weather cools, the geek scene is just heating up. September is full of great geeky things for…
The people have spoken, and I have listened. Last week, I implored you, the readers, to help me set my path for the immediate future. I offered up a menu of four well-liked and respected science-fiction series — Doctor Who, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Farscape and Battlestar Galactica –…
The bad news is that the end of summer is almost upon us. The good news is that so are the end-of-summer parties. One of the best of these is the Reel Social Club Summer Scream 4. “Adults-only fun at a throwback amusement park is pretty much a childhood dream…
Art and technology seem to be at odds sometimes, but it doesn’t have to work that way. Technology can be used to create art and to illuminate the process of its creation, as it will tonight at the TechHub Art Party. “What we do is integrate our technology in the…
It’s time for something new. At the close of last year, I made a series of geek resolutions to guide me through the majesty of 2014. I’ve been slowly chipping away at most of them, but I’ve yet to touch one of the big ones: my resolution to take on…
Quentin Tarantino’s debut, Reservoir Dogs, is rightly considered a classic, and most fans know it backward and forward. That doesn’t mean there’s no new way to enjoy it, though — like, for instance, at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s Reservoir Dogs Beer Dinner. “We like to take a movie that people…
Now and again, Time Lords need to regenerate. That means a new form, complete with a new set of quirks and, in practical terms, a new actor as the good Doctor. That time has come around again, and the Doctor Who Series 8 Premiere will feature Peter Capaldi as the…
