The Way, Way Back is a crowd-pleasing summer treat, predictable in its sweetness, but satisfying all the same. It’s like the multi-nationally branded ice cream sandwich you get on any pier in the Western Hemisphere: market-tested to appeal to as many people as possible (but you don’t mind gobbling it…
In his children’s books, Tomi Ungerer practiced his belief that books “should give children a taste for life, even if it tastes bad.” Bad taste is relative, as Ungerer discovered when sidelines in erotica and political commentary clashed with his reputation as a beloved children’s illustrator. Watching Far Out Isn’t…
In 1997, the programmers of the Making Scenes queer film and video festival in Ottawa, Ontario, received an unmarked package in the mail. It contained a videotape of an original film and no return address or contact information of any kind. The film, a five-minute short shot on video in…
Nat Faxon and Jim Rash didn’t set out to make a comedy about divorce. Eight years ago, when the improv-comedians-turned-actors-turned-Oscar-winning-screenwriters started writing a coming-of-age script based on a particularly upsetting moment from Rash’s childhood, they just wanted a happy ending. Yet almost all of the characters in The Way, Way…
Adam Sandler is successful because he’s lazy. Not in the sense that he has no ambition, or doesn’t want to work hard to maintain his status as America’s big-screen comedy king. But in the sense that he has built an empire by doing the same things with the same people,…
Adam Sandler pats his own back for being loyal in Grown Ups 2, an excuse for the star to hang out with his friends while he plays a Hollywood bigwig who’s celebrated for moving back home so he can hang out with his friends. Like its 2010 predecessor, Dennis Dugan’s…
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the cinema of the ’80s and early ’90s knows the majesty of Patrick Swayze. Over the course of a handful of films, Swayze crafted a composite character who was somehow the toughest of tough guys while simultaneously the sensitive sweetheart who knew just…
Guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson of The Band turned seventy this month, and that milestone got me thinkng about The Last Waltz. Some folks call it the “best concert movie ever made,” and it has a lot going for it in that respect: Martin Scorcese, who has a deep feel for the…
David Mazza. It was only last summer that Randy Roberts, director of Z Art Department, shifted gears: Although he initially showcased the work of historic artists — that is, dead ones — Roberts has increasingly turned to contemporary artists who are still alive and kicking. Demonstrating this new direction is…
Bees, either flying in swarms or flitting about solo, reassure us that everything is going apace; even their buzzing is the sound of life. But in Markus Imhoof’s marvelous bee-centric documentary, we see a forlorn beekeeper scraping their lifeless furry bodies from the surface of a honeycomb, and they drop…
The great movie Westerns are about honor, dignity and the majesty of the landscape. But they’re also about beautiful men — charismatic, sometimes dangerous-looking demigods like Robert Ryan, James Stewart, Franco Nero, Randolph Scott, and, of course, John Wayne. The Lone Ranger has Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, the former…
We have the Twilight franchise to thank for the fact that almost no sane adult wants to see another vampire movie, ever. Not that all the Twilight movies were bad. The first, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, hit a teen-dream sweet spot, the point where Gothic lit meets the iPod. And…
The original Maniac hit theaters in 1980, and quickly became a slasher classic by heralding a new era in on-screen depravity. The grimy, gritty film about a serial killer who scalps women and collects mannequins famously depicted a close-up of a shotgun blast to the head, multiple scalpings and other…
New Israeli Cinema began unofficially six years ago, when Mizel Museum curator Georgina Kolber began showing Israeli films on the lawn of the museum on summer nights. But inclement weather and a slim selection of library titles didn’t fulfill the curator’s desires, so she approached the Denver Film Society about…
Matt Dillon’s been all over the board over the years, from his roots as a rough and pretty teen with a James Dean vibe to later comic character roles in films like Singles, The Flamingo Kid and Mr. Wonderful. And somewhere in between, he delivered an unforgettable performance as the…
There’s no better way to celebrate a geek movie about shooting asteroids out of the sky than getting a bunch of geeks on stage to show off their skills doing that exact thing. No surprise, then, that the Alamo Drafthouse’s Action Pack team will be doing exactly that Sunday, Jun…
With just a day to go, the Sie FilmCenter made its $150,000 Kickstarter goal — which will fund the theater’s necessary transition to Digital Cinema Presentation projectors. As incentive for participating in the Kickstarter campaign, Film on the Rocks director Britta Erickson and her crew promised a special screening of…
With Friday’s release of The Heat (Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy), another buddy cop movie joins a film library filled with explosions, oddball pairings and broad humor. While the genre’s been compacted into a cliche over the years (especially immediately following its heyday in the late ’80s and early ’90s), and…
David Mazza. It was only last summer that Randy Roberts, director of Z Art Department, shifted gears: Although he initially showcased the work of historic artists — that is, dead ones — Roberts has increasingly turned to contemporary artists who are still alive and kicking. Demonstrating this new direction is…
A sommelier can incite intimidation, scorn or trust, depending on who’s drinking and who’s pouring. Rarely, at least in America, do we take full advantage of proximity to those nerds with corkscrews. Somm follows four young men training hard to be Master Sommeliers, of which there are only 200 worldwide…
Surprising proof that Hollywood still can craft a memorable studio comedy — even if it doesn’t realize that itself — Roland Emmerich’s White House Down stands as a singular achievement in parody, its auteur’s intentions be damned. It’s not just a pitch-perfect attack on every risible plot point afflicting today’s…
Until 2005 or so, no one thought much about modern piracy of the high-seas variety. But then Somali pirates began attacking merchant ships with increasing frequency, seizing vessels and holding their crews hostage for outlandish sums. Danish director Tobias Lindholm’s wiry, neatly crafted thriller A Hijacking wrests fact into the…
