Against All Odds, No Escape Will Have You on the Edge of Your Seat

Mean and vigorous men’s-adventure pulp throwback No Escape has everything going against it. It’s a late-August release whose leads, Owen Wilson and Lake Bell, tend to be the best things in movies you otherwise regret seeing. The trailers, teasing the story of a toothsome American family hunted by peasant rebels…

Voice Film Club #93: What We Love About The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast: We love Guy Ritchie’s stylish, charming The Man From U.N.C.L.E., while LA Weekly film critic Amy states her case for American Ultra. We move onto Lily Tomlin’s memorable performance in Grandma. Later, Village Voice film editor Alan recommends Evil Knievel doc Being Evel, cutting indie…

Nine Truths Cut From Straight Outta Compton, the N.W.A Movie

“You could make five different N.W.A movies. We made the one we wanted to make.” That’s director F. Gary Gray during an audience Q&A after a recent screening of Straight Outta Compton, the long-awaited N.W.A movie. In our review, Amy Nicholson writes that there’s much more to the group’s story:…

Being Evel‘s Subject Flew High, With or Without His Bike

Is it in honor of its subject that the high-flying doc Being Evel indulges so often in hilarious overstatement? “He opened the door and invited people to buy a ticket to watch truth,” one talking head insists, somehow keeping his face straight. Another speaks of how in the early 1970s…

The Action-Filled American Ultra Is Smart at Being Dumb

Nima Nourizadeh’s American Ultra is a bloody valentine attached to a bomb. It’s violent, brash, inventive and horrific, and perhaps the most romantic film of the year. Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart star as Mike and Phoebe, two West Virginia stoners blissed out on weed and each other. “We’re the…

Pianist Hank Troy Closes Silent Film Season at Chautauqua Monday

Hank Troy is taken aback. It’s just been pointed out to him that he’s created musical accompaniment for silent films a decade longer than the Silent Era itself lasted. “Hmm, I never thought about that,” says the gentle, friendly musician. “I’m going to have to think about that one!” Tonight, Troy…

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Is a Charming Throwback

In a world gone mad for superhero movies, what chance does the light spy caper have? When a whole city can be blasted to smithereens thanks to special effects, a picture that’s actually shot in Rome doesn’t hold a candle. Are modern audiences ready for the stylish, artfully ridiculous delights…

Get Ready, Hunties: Drag Starz Fan Favs Hotties Coming to Denver

The runaway success of RuPaul’s Drag Race has put the spotlight on the subculture of drag queens, introducing the world to dozens of talented performers who have battled it out for seven seasons for the honor of being crowned the “next drag superstar.” Many of these personalities have crossed Denver…

Xavier Dolan’s Tom at the Farm Harvests a Fresh Cinematic Voice

Chances are good that you don’t know the works of writer/director/actor Xavier Dolan — and that is a crying shame. Dolan is Quebec’s wunderkind of cinema who, since turning nineteen, has put out five amazing pieces of film that show the practice, originality and power of someone much older and…

Cop Car Starts Well, But Doesn’t Get Anywhere

Promising and disappointing all at once, Jon Watts’s backroads thriller Cop Car heralds the arrival of a significant director, one adept not just at the usual action and suspense but also at the fleet, affecting depiction of lives as they’re actually lived. In the opening scenes, the camera glides alongside…

The End of the Tour Finds Just Enough of David Foster Wallace

“This conversation is the best one I ever had,” David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) says as The End of the Tour wraps up, and the movie, a pleasantly talky chamber piece, gives us welcome bursts of conversations. That long chat, with a David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) abashed by the success…

Shark! Pop Culture’s Five Best Sharksploitation Experiences

Sharks are awesome. They’re the scariest real-world monsters out there — even for people like us, who live in a landlocked state. Thanks to their charming personalities and dashing good looks —all teeth and soulless eyes and hunger — sharks make for great movie and TV stars, a truth apparent…

Jason Segel on Becoming David Foster Wallace for The End of the Tour

Jason Segel didn’t tell his book club he’d been cast as novelist David Foster Wallace in James Ponsoldt’s biopic The End of the Tour. “I didn’t want to sound like Fancy Pants McGee,” admits Segel over lunch in Los Angeles. (Especially since the 6-foot-4-inch comedy actor is famous for dropping…

In Ricki and the Flash, Meryl Streep Reinvents Herself — Again

Jonathan Demme’s rock-and-roll dramedy Ricki and the Flash exists in a wormhole where the last five decades of pop culture are a blur. There’s 66-year-old Meryl Streep, playing a broke singer who ditched her family to dominate the stage with the whiskey growl of Janis Joplin, the jangly jewelry and…