Reviews, interviews, and festival coverage for Boulder’s only independent newspaper from 2014 to 2025.
His name is Figowitz, but everyone calls him “Cookie.” It fits him well. Not only is he the cook for this outfit of beaver trappers traipsing through 19th-century Oregon Territory, but “Cookie” also captures his sweet and gentle nature. When … Continue reading FIRST COW
Both born at the end of the 19th century, Arthur Stanley Jefferson (Stan Laurel) and Oliver Norvell Hardy (“Babe” to friends and family) found their way to the silver screen by different means. Laurel came of a theatrical family, first … Continue reading Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations
Alexander Hamilton was a thinker, a writer, a dreamer, a mind constantly at work. Born out of wedlock and orphaned on a Caribbean island, Hamilton earned everything that came his way. And, like so many others who came before and … Continue reading HAMILTON
A lecture may get your point across, but a story illustrates it better. And if you can smuggle in a little humor, it’s a better bet the medicine will go down. Irresistible got you hankering for more? Here are four … Continue reading Home Viewing: Satire Streams
Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) is a typical liberal elite, the kind they grow in labs somewhere along the coast. He dresses well enough to look like he has taste, works at a job that makes him enough money to look … Continue reading IRRESISTIBLE
Craving some much needed positive PR, the Valiant Tobacco Company announces a cockamamie scheme: Any American town that can give up smoking for one month will win $25 million, tax-free. Eagle Rock, Iowa—population 4,000—needs that kind of coin to revamp … Continue reading COLD TURKEY
George Clooney’s 2019 adaptation for Hulu was faithful to Joseph Heller’s novel until it missed the mark. He condemned Yossarian to a Sisyphean hell rather than set him free and off into the world. Clooney’s deviation probably comes from a … Continue reading CATCH-22
On April 23, 1917, Buster Keaton made his theatrical debut in Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s The Butcher Boy. Three years later, Keaton would strike out on his own, producing one comic short after the other. Three years after that, Keaton made the … Continue reading THE CAMERAMAN
Made in 1925, Charlie Chaplin’s greatest comedy is also his most recognizable. From the Little Tramp (Chaplin) woefully underdressed in the Klondike to hunger so intense he envisions his cabin-mate as a large roast chicken. But it’s the dance of … Continue reading THE GOLD RUSH
Michael J. Cinema 
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