All you need to know about Taken 3 is that Liam Neeson survives an explosive car crash — twice. Director Olivier Megaton even rewinds the second blast to show us how his hero escaped. It still doesn’t make sense. But who cares. The Taken franchise is rooted in implausibilities, specifically…
We all understand the idea of 3D: When you wear funny glasses, it looks like something is jumping off the screen at you. But the Downtown Aquarium is taking the concept one step beyond, with its new 4D theater. Along with the 3D glasses, movie-goers are treated to smells, splashes…
The last decade of film programming in Denver has done wonders to fill the gaps in any cineaste’s lexicon. And with the 2013 arrival of the Alamo Drafthouse in Littleton, with its focus not only on first-run films but special repertory programming as well, many underrepresented genres have returned to…
For decades, fans of Stephen King’s The Shining have made a pilgrimage to Estes Park to visit the Stanley Hotel, the famous inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in King’s horror novel, and though the Stanley embraces its pop-culture connection and is overflowing with spooky hauntings and creepiness, one physical manifestation…
As the year in movie-going draws to a close — and as critics busy themselves drawing up lists and handing out awards — it seems time at last to look ahead. Here are the ten films to get excited about in the year to come. 1. Jauja (directed by Lisandro…
Editor’s note: After canceling the nationwide release of The Interview, due to threats by hackers angry at the movie’s sentiment toward North Korea, Sony Pictures Entertainment — perhaps after being scolded by President Obama — decided to screen the film on a limited basis. In Denver, it has been shown…
Ann Hamilton and Jae Ko et al. For Ann Hamilton: Selected Works, the initial enfilade of spaces at Robischon Gallery is taken over by works on paper by this noted conceptualist. The first group is from her “visite” series, the name of which is taken from the term “carte de…
TV continued to unmoor from its origins and transform into something else this year. No longer tethered to a specific appliance, a particular kind of storytelling, or even commercial concerns, “television” now feels like an increasingly obsolete word. But that’s a discussion for another time, for we’ve come to celebrate…
The hard work of fifteen students at University of Colorado Denver is paying off: Their animated film, I Need my Monster, has been voted into the championship round in the Student Filmmakers Award Audience Choice competition. The students have spent the last eighteen months at the school’s Digital Animation Center…
As they bring in the new year, Denver theaters will spend much of January highlighting masterpieces and cult classics alike. Some of these films critique the movie industry while others are only worth watching because of how delightfully terrible they are. Several documentaries will ignite discussions about the function of…
Photo by Mark PokornyTalk some sense into ’em, Bilbo.Village Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl and LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson discuss the third-and-final Hobbit movie: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in this special bonus episode of the Voice Film Club podcast. As always, send barbs, jabs,…
“If everything were great, nothing would be great.” That line, from Scott Coffey’s smart and sweetly entertaining Adult World, is one of my favorite bits of movie dialogue this year, not least because it’s applicable to every movie genre — actually, every genre of everything. But in the movie world,…
Here are movie moments from 2014 I’ll never forget: Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s sad pop tart smacking her ass in Beyond the Lights, the sick room choked with flowers in Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo, Oscar Isaac and Kirsten Dunst’s Greek-island all-nighter in The Two Faces of January, and the entire soundtrack of…
In Rupert Wyatt’s highball-cool reworking of Karel Reisz’s 1974 The Gambler, Mark Wahlberg does not play a cop, does not shoot bad guys with a gun, and does not spend considerable time shirtless (though we do see him sulking in a bathtub, and there’s a fleeting wet T-shirt moment, too)…
The waifs that Walter Keane made famous were known for their huge peepers. But look down at their mouths: Every one kept its lips pressed tight, as though to prevent a secret from escaping. That’s where you see the real artist: Walter’s shy wife, Margaret (Amy Adams),who bitterly allowed her…
Ann Hamilton and Jae Ko et al. For Ann Hamilton: Selected Works, the initial enfilade of spaces at Robischon Gallery is taken over by works on paper by this noted conceptualist. The first group is from her “visite” series, the name of which is taken from the term “carte de…
There’s something curiously airless about director Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, the story of real-life Olympian and WWII P.O.W. Louis Zamperini. Early on, Louis (Jack O’Connell) and his fellow American soldiers are zipping through the golden skies, dogfighting with Japanese planes — and even though the B-24’s doors are open and the…
Before worrying ourselves over its qualities as an adaptation or its findings as an experiment in just how much tumpety-tump parump-pa-bump the human mind can endure, let’s take a moment to marvel that Rob Marshall’s Into the Woods even exists — as a PG from Disney, no less! No matter…
“Politics really isn’t my specialty,” shrugs Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to a naval commander (Charles Dance) in an early job-interview scene in Morten Tyldum’s choppy biopic The Imitation Game. Yet no less than Winston Churchill would credit Turing as the main cause of the Allies’ victory over the Nazis. Turing…
It’s judgment day. Have you been naughty or have you been nice? It all comes down that. But while you won’t find out if you get the new iPad or a lump of coal for a few days, it won’t hurt to pay homage to the ultimate holiday hero. Bake…
Village Voice film critic Stephanie Zacharek and LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson run down their ten favorite/best/top/whatever movies of 2014, along with Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl. Send barbs, jabs, claims or jokes to filmpod@villagevoice.com and follow us on the Twitter at @voicefilmclub. [Subscribe to the Voice Film Club…
We begin this week’s Voice Film Club podcast with a strange story about Giles Corey, who famously said, “More weight!” as stones were laid upon him during his witch trial. The end of the year is sort of like that for film critics, who are pressed upon with all the…
