Few filmmakers have pushed the limits of cinema as forcefully as the late Stan Brakhage. His hundreds of films forged a cinematic language that has dominated the experimental media world since the 1950s. Brakhage work is not the easiest to watch. Some films, such as Window Water Baby Moving, use…
“In the news, you rarely see the intersection of queer issues and immigration issues,” says Kevin Patterson, an organizer with Eye-Resist, an ethnic-studies group at the University of Colorado at Boulder that is sponsoring tonight’s Undocuqueer Voices: Stories of Growing Up Queer and Undocumented. The event features Two-Spirit slam-poetry champion…
Amongst the striking coal miners and their family members murdered by the Colorado National Guard during the Ludlow Massacre were five Mexican-American children. To commemorate this almost-forgotten chapter of history, Su Teatro’s Anthony J. Garcia wrote Ludlow: El Grito de Las Minas (The Cry of the Mines); he’s directing a…
Standing outside the Angola State Penitentiary after witnessing the execution of Patrick Sonnier, Sister Helen Prejean struggled to wrap her head around what she had just seen. After all, in the United States, executions are hidden from the public, and few people ever witness the state killing a person –…
The modern quilt world’s obsession with straight lines and symmetry rubs quilter Mike “Mac” McNamara the wrong way; he never cared for prescribed patterns. His emotionally evocative quilts reflect on life’s biggest issues: desire, grief, politics and childlike wonder. Often as humorous as they are critical, his quilts are gifts…
Bored Japanese businessmen started the air-sex trend, says Bryan Poyser, director of the raunchy, heartbreaking romantic comedy, Love and Air Sex, which opens at the SIE FilmCenter on Friday, March 7, for a weeklong run. Air sex is the erotic equivalent of air guitar. Pornographic mimes boasting filthy stage names…
While opera and tragedy go hand in hand, the misfortunes of the characters in Carmen, La Bohème and Madama Butterfly might seem tepid to today’s audiences, who’ve been dazed by the horrors of the nightly news. Rather than entombing opera in solemnity and begging audiences to care, Central City Opera…
Filmmaker Guy Maddin says that watching a movie has more in common with a paranormal séance than meets the eye; he remembers the first time he realized that the French word for a movie screening is “séance,” which translates into “a sitting.” Both activities take place in the dark; both…
Hollywood peddles movies like a chef flings noodles at the wall. Does it stick? If so, perfecto. If it splats on the floor, well, movie moguls have enough dough to try again. The one thing audiences can be certain of is that each year, Hollywood is guaranteed to serve up…
“What do you know about Paul Robeson?” internationally renowned baritone Anthony Brown asked writer Andrew Flack a few years back. “I know a little, but show me your notes,” Flack responded. It was New Year’s Eve, and the two men began talking about Robeson’s life, his music, his political struggles…
Hollywood movies often depict Jewish culture, but they haven’t been as thorough with regard to the religion itself, says Kathryn Bernheimer, programmer for the Boulder Jewish Film Festival and author of The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies: A Critic’s Ranking of the Very Best. There are few Orthodox Jewish directors and…
Johnny Minotaur, surrealist poet and artist Charles Henri Ford’s 1971 film, is a lyrical explosion of taboos: Incest, man-boy love and power dynamics, pansexuality and autoeroticism are just a few of the issues he grapples with. After the film was lost for two decades, the New American Cinema Group worked…
“These aren’t your grandmother’s quilts,” said Marcie Emily, docent at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, while leading a tour through MANifestations, the twelfth biennial exhibition of quilts made by men. As she walked by each quilt, she discussed techniques, the price of the fabric, and which were hand-sewn and which…
Skirts are usually used to cover things up, but fashion designer Jasmine Zion decided to turn things inside out recently when she quilted a skirt based on vaginas to auction off at a fundraiser for a scholarship benefiting survivors of interpersonal violence (that is, violence between people who know each…
Taking a sober look at the thousands of untested household chemicals triggering disease is enough to make a person panic and run for the hills. But the activists and filmmakers behind The Human Experiment, which screens on Saturday, February 22 as part of the Colorado Environmental Film Festival, do just…
As the Denver Film Society prepares to celebrate the worst movies of 2013 at tonight’s Golden Raspberry party, Westword asked a few players (those that were brave enough to talk about it) in the local film about which flicks they think were the biggest flops. See also: PBBT! Pronouncing the…
“Buffalo Bill first experienced the Wild West; then, he promoted it,” says Steve Friesen, head of the Buffalo Bill Museum, who has been working tirelessly to hang the new new exhibit Folk, Fine and Funky: Buffalo Bill in Art. The museum has divided the show into several themes: Buffalo Bill…
Are you gagging on Oscar-nominated, highbrow movies? Clean your palate with world-class garbage at Reel Social Club’s anti-Oscar bash, the PBBT — Golden Raspberry Party. “At the Denver Film Society, we play very serious films, and it’s always fun to get people together to remember that bad films, for better…
On Valentine’s Day eve, while last-minute lovers were raiding grocery stores for cheap chocolates, plastic-wrapped flowers and prefab love notes, Jordan Garcia raced east on 14th Avenue toward the GEO Aurora ICE Processing Center. “I want to get there before Wade Castle leaves for the day. He’s the guy in…
MM Serra is struggling to find a New York City venue bold enough to exhibit Charles Henri Ford’s 1971 surrealist memoir film, Johnny Minotaur. Nobody wants to bite. This experimental classic reflects on teen sexuality with explicit homoerotic imagery. Unnamed institutions refuse to show it because curators believe the performers look like minors and that the film violates basic standards of decency, she says.
After a monumental splash on the film-festival circuit, Tiny: A Story About Living Small returns home to Colorado tonight. In this documentary, filmmaker Christopher Smith panics: He is turning thirty without fulfilling his Rocky Mountain cabin fantasy, so he dumps his savings into five acres, sans electricity, water or gas,…
Whether you are a raincoat-wearing heavy-breather, an academic seeking fodder for educational frottage or a run-of-the-mill cineaste, beware, you had better be of age and hope the city authorities do not bust this festival up: The Denver Film Society has curated a lineup of erotic films sure to fan your flames of desire and debate; so, grab your favorite lube and check out our handy guide to Sex Shop Cinema.
