When the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team — twenty raw college boys — beat the seemingly invincible, state-hardened Soviets and went on to win the gold medal at Lake Placid, New York, the event was regarded, even in palm-lined Miami and iceless Honolulu, as the most amazing feat in U.S…
Viewers rightfully marvel at the colorful CG seascapes of Finding Nemo and the unique drawing style of The Triplets of Belleville, but when it comes to the actual plots of contemporary animated films, no one’s pushing the boundaries quite like anime auteur Satoshi Kon. Having taken a page from the…
The cult surrounding Cory McAbee’s surreal romp The American Astronaut just grows and grows — enthralled, you can’t help thinking, as much by the film’s inaccessibility (released in 2001, it’s still not out on video or DVD) as by the depth of its weirdness. So. Who wouldn’t want to revisit…
Full Frontal: Contemporary Asian Art from the Logan Collection. The normal stock in trade for the Denver Art Museum’s Asian-art curator, Ron Otsuka, is traditional styles, but he’s been drafted into doing contemporary duty by a gift that includes more than a score of pieces by Asian and Asian-American artists…
Surf’s up. Palm trees sway invitingly in the breeze. The sparkling beaches are amply decorated with bikini babes and hard-body surfer dudes. Everybody has a nice cold drink with a wedge of fresh lime in it. Viewed that way, The Big Bounce is as alluring a midwinter pitch for the…
Behold a tale of true love (between a boy and a bicycle), of tireless courage (from a bitty grandmother with a clubfoot) and of a very shocking new definition of “sexy” (three wizened matriarchs who ravenously slurp down frogs). This is The Triplets of Belleville, an animated extravaganza of Gallic…
The great silent comedian Charles Chaplin’s political troubles with the United States government probably didn’t begin with the release of Modern Times in 1936. But this brilliant satire of American factory automation, the depersonalization of workers and the social ills of the Depression got a cold reception in the U.S…
Some acts of courage command everyone’s respect: the firefighter’s return to a burning house to rescue a child, the infantryman’s sacrifice of self for a wounded comrade, the weary black woman’s refusal to yield her seat on a segregated bus. Sometimes, though, courage can feel clouded — especially when it’s…
There is a recent generation of American men who came of age too late for free love and wanton property grabbing, and too early for post-grunge emotional wankery and info-age immediacy. Stuck on their iceberg, isolated by oceans from anything real, like the original punk or goth movements or Australia’s…
The new film by Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi (who gave us the superb tale of mountain smuggling and pursuit A Time for Drunken Horses) has a most provocative title — Marooned in Iraq — and addresses a crucial contemporary subject: the slaughter of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein’s regime and…
So, have you ever wondered what exactly goes into the painting of a portrait? You may have suspected there was more to it than a painter saying something along the lines of, “Hey baby, can I, uh, paint you?” and then someone else saying, “Yeah, sure, that’d be cool.” You…
Furtive anonymous sex and deep psychological insight don’t usually accompany one another — except in the writings of John Rechy and Irving Rosenthal. But they most certainly do in Porn Theatre, writer-director-actor Jacques Nolot’s uncannily subtle mood piece, helpfully retitled from the French original, La Chatte à Deux Têtes. That’s…
The first film in a new monthly series called Seeing Queerly, presented by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of Colorado, will be No Secret Anymore — The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon. Directed by Joan E. Biren, the 57-minute documentary chronicles half a century of…
Michael Caine is a revelation!” declares the Jeffrey Lyons quote currently appearing on ads for The Statement. Lyons is right, but not in the way you might expect. Indeed, Caine’s performance here is revelatory — who knew he could be this boring? Insufferable, yes — Oscar aside, his mangled “American”…
In 1998, a passionate majority of Venezuelans elected a new president. His name was Hugo Chavez, and he was the first leader in generations to come from outside the ruling class. He vowed to redistribute Venezuela’s oil wealth and to involve the people intimately in the political process. Openly comparing…
Be careful what you defrost this week. It might be Aunt Harriet’s scary Christmas fruitcake, buried in the depths of the freezer compartment since 1997. Or that leg of lamb you neglected to roast in ’93. Worse yet, it could be the gruesome alien predator that, once accidentally thawed, terrified…
This year’s British assault on the Yank funnybone is a spirited, hard-trying farce called Calendar Girls, plucked straight from 1999 headlines and dolled up with all the heartwarming charm we’ve come to expect from recent films made by our former rulers. Essentially a chick flick for middle-aged women — nothing…
King Vidor’s great silent classic The Crowd (1928) holds up astonishingly well 75 years after it first played in theaters, and knowledgeable film lovers leap at any opportunity to see it — especially if that opportunity comes complete with live piano accompaniment, as in days of yore. The Crowd will…
Anthony Minghella’s magnificent film version of the Civil War epic Cold Mountain has much more going for it than Hollywood grandeur. Beyond its striking sets and gruesome battle scenes populated with thousands of extras, in addition to its movie-star glamour — Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are like lovely pieces…
For those who pay no mind to Oprah, the dispute at the heart of House of Sand and Fog concerns the occupancy of a run-down little bungalow just inland from the Northern California coast. It’s not much of a place, really. And to get a glimpse of the Pacific, you’d…
At first glance, it seems odd that French surrealist filmmaker Georges Franju began as a documentarian. But his non-fiction visit to a slaughterhouse (Le Sang des Betes, 1949) and his grim look at World War I relics (Hotel des Invalides, 1951) set the stage, in their way, for his later…
William H. Macy’s plain-vanilla features and hangdog screen demeanor have served him well. Who could resist him as the clueless car dealer who hatched the disastrous kidnapping plot in Fargo, or as the distraught husband of a frisky porn star in Boogie Nights? A splendid character actor with a gift…
