Now Showing: This Week’s Art Options

Brilliant. If you have any interest in modernism or fine craft — even if you aren’t particularly interested in jewelry — you’ll find something to marvel over at the Denver Art Museum’s winter blockbuster Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century. The show is a visual marathon, with so many things…

Seven Films to See at the Denver Jewish Film Festival

When programming a film festival that caters to a particular segment of the population — be it black, Asian, gay, Latino, Christian or Jewish — organizers endeavor to find films that speak from many different voices to tell the group’s collective story. But they also must be careful not to…

Five Best Places to Watch Documentaries in Metro Denver

If you’re looking for the truth, Colorado’s a great place to be. Our state’s documentary directors have made movies that brought home Oscars, became Sundance selections and won prestigious festival awards, and movie programmers work tirelessly to bring the best of contemporary and historical nonfiction films to local audiences. Here…

Ten Best Film Events in Metro Denver for February 2015

Whether you’re planning to find warmth in February through God’s light, red-hot porn, global-warming anxiety or athletic burn, thaw out at one of the Denver area’s movie theaters. This month programmers will be reflecting on everything from Judaism to wolf extinction to ultra-endurance racing on local screens. So put on…

Black or White Stirs Up More Questions Than Answers About Racism

There are few hard-and-fast rules in screenwriting, but here’s one I think we can agree on: Something’s gone wrong if your crowd-pleasing family drama asks audiences to hope a child’s father proves to be a crackhead. That’s one baffling turn in Mike Binder’s Black or White, a movie about race…

This Year’s Oscar-Nominated Short Films Are Short on Winners

While many of Oscar’s big shots clock in at more than two hours, some filmmakers remain committed to telling unique and inventive stories that don’t require viewers to set aside an entire night to enjoy. The Academy Award-nominated short films run the gamut of topics and tones. Yet together they…

Stephen Belber and Patrick Stewart Are a Perfect Match

Writer-director Stephen Belber’s inspiring, generous Match is so good that it’s like some kind of trick. In what can only be characterized as a verdant collaboration between the director and the irreplaceable Patrick Stewart, the film offers a vivid portrait of a huge-hearted Juilliard dance professor named Tobi Powell who…

Now Showing: This Week’s Art Options

Charles Parson and Collin Parson. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center museum director Blake Milteer has put together a major duet, Continuance: Charles and Collin Parson, taking advantage of the unusual circumstance in which a father and son are both committed contemporary artists. It makes sense to link Chuck to his…

Ten Must-Watch Colorado Filmmakers Making Movies Now

No, Colorado is not Los Angeles or New York. But the homegrown films this state has to offer defy the expectations of moviegoers whose tastes are limited to Hollywood and Indiewood offerings. We have bold, original voices, untamed by industry standards. A host of recent documentaries have made national waves,…

Daniel Junge, Louie Psihoyos Show Documentaries at Sundance

Filmmaker Daniel Junge, who won an Academy Award in 2012 for the documentary short Saving Face, made his official Sundance Film Festival debut yesterday with his new documentary, Being Evel. And another Colorado filmmaker, Louie Psihoyos, was back at the iconic Utah festival this past weekend with his second doc…

Six Reasons Why Suspiria Is a Cut Above Other Horror Films

Italian horror film maestro Dario Argento has been freaking out audiences since he first burst on the scene in 1970 with the first in a series of Hitchcock-infused thrillers whose titles matched their stylistic terrors: The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Cat o’ Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet…

Celebrate a Century of Rocky Mountain National Park This Weekend

Americans love their national parks. And Colorado people love, love, love Rocky Mountain National Park, a 416- square-mile expanse of towering peaks, glacial lakes, tundra, forests and meadows less than two hours’ drive from Denver. Despite being much smaller in size than Yellowstone or Yosemite, RMNP typically ranks among the…

If Mortdecai Had a Time Machine, It Could Be 1965’s Top Comedy

Mortdecai is creeping into theaters with the flushed shame of a debutante who expects to be pelted with tomatoes. It’s a pity. In 1965, Mortdecai would be the hit of the year. Director David Koepp whips through this pop-colored caper about crooked art dealer Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) — one…

R100 Is a Head-Scratching S&M Story Without Nudity

Hitoshi Matsumoto’s R100 takes its name from the Japanese rating system, which proceeds thusly: R15, safe for fifteen-year-olds; R18, safe for adults; and now Matsumoto’s invented category, which, depending on a centenarian’s ticker, could refer to either a calming montage of pigeons or a gonzo sex comedy. If you guessed…

Now Showing: Art Options for the Week of January 22

Brilliant. If you have any interest in modernism or fine craft — even if you aren’t particularly interested in jewelry — you’ll find something to marvel over at the Denver Art Museum’s winter blockbuster Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century. The show is a visual marathon, with so many things…