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Best Locally Produced Documentary

Chiefs

Documentarian Donna Dewey is the only Denver-based filmmaker to win an Academy Award, and last year she put her heart and soul into producing a moving non-fiction film called Chiefs, which chronicles two seasons of play by a high school basketball team on Wyoming's impoverished Wind River Indian Reservation. Dewey and Wyoming-born director Daniel Junge capture the sweet hopes of these boys from the rez, as well as their troubles and traumas, in unblinking fashion. Among the new wave of films about contemporary Native American life, this take on the hoop dreams of kids may be the truest and most emotional.

Best Movie in the Denver International Film Festival

Rabbit-Proof Fence

In 2002, Australian director Phillip Noyce returned to top form with two films -- a dark adaptation of Graham Greene's disturbing Vietnam novel, The Quiet American, and the movie that set last October's Denver Film Festival abuzz, Rabbit-Proof Fence. It's the heroic story of three half-caste Aborigine girls who run away from a Dickensian government orphanage in the 1930s, crossing 1,500 miles of the Outback to reach home. Beautiful and moving, it won the festival's audience-appreciation award and -- even better -- can be seen right now in theatrical release.

Best Hollywood References to Denver

About Schmidt

In About Schmidt, Alexander Payne's black comedy about a retired insurance man's reassessment of his bleak life, Jack Nicholson's Warren Schmidt sets out from sleepy Omaha in his huge motor home and takes I-80 to Denver, where he hopes to prevent his daughter's wedding to a dopey waterbed salesman. Payne shot very little of the film here -- a few establishing shots and casual exteriors -- but in the course of things, Nicholson takes some very specific Denver street directions ("...then turn left on Speer"). Thanks to the magic of movies, Nicholson also winds up in a Denver hot tub that's not really in Denver -- with pushy Kathy Bates.

Best Cinematic Save

The Denver Jazz on Film Series

Last year, hard times killed the Denver Jazz on Film Festival at age four. But from the ashes rose the Denver Jazz on Film Series, a slightly shorter, but no less syncopated, bow to a great American art form as interpreted by moviemakers around the world. Thanks go to the new Starz FilmCenter on the Auraria campus (also home to the Denver International Film Festival), which screened twelve jazz-related films over Valentine's Day weekend, including a vivid documentary about the late saxophonist Dexter Gordon, Bertrand Tavernier's classic Round Midnight and cinematic glimpses of jazz greats Chico Hamilton, Thelonious Monk and Stephane Grappelli. Happily, the out chorus is still on hold: Denver Jazz on Film will return to Starz next winter.

Best Specialty Film Festival

Denver Pan-African Film Festival

Most of the movies that clog area theaters fall into predictable categories: comedies, dramas, action-thrillers, idiocy. But the Denver Pan-African Film Festival, sponsored by Starz FilmCenter, offers cineastes a tasty alternative. Last year's event featured a hefty menu of fifty flicks, ranging from light entertainments to wrenching documentaries, and the 2003 version, scheduled to take place April 21 through 27 at Starz, promises to up the ante.

Best Free Film Series

Tattered Cover Film Series

Once housed at the venerable bookstore's LoDo events space, the long-running Tattered Cover Film Series moved to the Starz FilmCenter this year without amping up the price. Curated by critic Howie Movshovitz, the series uncovers both obscure gems and the occasional classic, such as Casablanca. They even pay for the parking, too: All you have to buy is the popcorn and soy-milk latte.

Best Snarky Movie Reviews

Reconstructed Bellybutton

Wanna know who wins the Worst Parent or Guardian in a Movie award for 2002? What

about Actor Who Should Have Known Better? Or Worst Attempt to Act Smart? Abby Winter and her partner, Laura Peterson, will happily slag off -- even at industry favorites. The roommates use amusing photos of their cats, Gleason and Mr. Thornhill, as their rating system; a hissing, hairball-hacking Gleason is the worst snub they dole out (and they do it often). They've targeted Titanic as the worst movie of all time and were even tepid about O Brother, Where Art Thou? Although the site doesn't have a professional polish, Winter's sardonic wit and Peterson's childish graphics are good for endless hours of entertainment.

Best Dance Workshop

Frankie Manning "Nothin' But Swing" Weekend
Karen Lee Dance International

Each spring, lindy hop king Frankie Manning returns to Denver, like the swallows to Capistrano, for a weekend of dance, dance and more dance. The octogenarian's history as a dancer dates back to the heyday of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, where he helped invent the original lindy moves. When swing gave way to bebop, and jazz audiences stopped dancing, Manning took a thirty-year break and went to work at the post office. But he's been back on his feet since the 1980s, dancing across the country and becoming an annual fixture at Karen Lee's dance studio alongside his son and fellow dancer, Chazz Young. Swingers, take note: Reservations for his April 16 through 19 Denver turn are going quickly.

Best Hippie Dance

Middle Eastern Peace Dance
Mercury Cafe

The Mercury Cafe's indomitable life force, Marilyn Megenity, has seen it all -- good, bad and ugly -- in the many years she's been running the place. So if she personally endorses something, it's gotta be good. Right now she's touting the Middle Eastern Peace Dance, which is held the last Saturday of every month and features live music by Sherefe and the Habibis. It seems to encourage what Megenity calls "that old wild hippie freestyle," a sweet-vibed communal phenomenon some of us haven't seen since 1970 -- give or take a few Phish concerts.

Best Ballroom Dancing Party

Sharp Images Singles Dance
Continental Hotel

First of all, there's no need to arrive single, but if you do, there's no need to be shy. Nor do you have to be accomplished on the dance floor, though you'll see plenty who are. Known for its friendly regulars and non-threatening atmosphere, the forty-and-over Sunday-night Sharp Images dance has endured for at least fifteen years, for reasons that will become obvious the minute you step in the door.

Best Of DenverĀ®

Best Of