The Denver Film Festival has a pretty good track record. From red carpet galas to the obscure and unique, the annual festival’s 250+ lineup of features and shorts every November always surprises and enchants moviegoers. Some movies are released weeks … Continue reading Sunday Streams — I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS
There are a great number of personal movies playing at this year’s Denver Film Festival, but Honey Boy is the rare intersection between personal memoir and commercial enterprise. One that ought to break out of the festival circuit and into mainstream theaters. … Continue reading HONEY BOY
The allure of a portrait is the suggestion of the secret. Just look at the one of Lisa del Giocondo. We know when she was born, June 15, 1479, and we know Leonardo da Vinci painted her sometime in the … Continue reading PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
You don’t have to know a thing about soccer, or even care much for it, to enjoy Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia’s documentary about the legendary Argentina player. Constructed from over 500 hours of archival footage, and bolstered by audio interviews with … Continue reading DIEGO MARADONA
It’s been 20 years since novelist Jonathan Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn — the story of Lionel Essrog, a low-level gumshoe with Tourette’s — and actor Edward Norton has been trying to bring it to the screen every since. Oh, to know the … Continue reading MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN
It’s been one week since wrapping the 46th Telluride Film Festival, which means it’s high time for reviews and fall previews. In the spirit of the festival, let’s kick things off by first looking back. Each year, TFF invites someone … Continue reading Sunday Streams — LATE AUTUMN
Few cinematic pleasures are greater than a Labor Day weekend spent inside Telluride’s picturesque box canyon. At 8,750 feet above sea level, the air is thin and crisp. The sun’s rays beat down on you, but a breeze instantly chills … Continue reading This week in Film — Dispatches From the 46th Telluride Film Festival
Birds of Passage — from directors Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra — is a masterpiece. Set in Colombia and spanning the years 1969 to 1980, Birds is divided into five sections, songs really, that recount the tale of ancient rituals, tight-knit tribes, and the sudden and violent encroachment of capitalism thanks to the profitability of the drug trade. Like most stories depicting the rise and fall of an empire, it begins with an attraction. Specifically, between the young Zaida (Natalia Reyes) and the bachelor Rapayet (José Acosta) at Zaida’s coming out ceremony. With a flurry of images, Gallego and Guerra invoke … Continue reading DFF Review — BIRDS OF PASSAGE (Pájaros de verano)
Wildlife’s signature image (seen below) is of a husband and wife pensively looking at each other across an empty chair. Momentarily, their only child will occupy that chair, but his presence will not unite them. Instead, it will only amplify the gulf between the two. Set in 1960 Montana, Wildlife finds this suburban family caught in an existential crisis. Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been terminated from his position at the local country club. The officially cause: “overstepping his boundaries with the clients,” which Jerry interprets as being too friendly — he was actually gambling with the golfers. Emasculated, Jerry quietly … Continue reading DFF Review — WILDLIFE
It’s only a matter of minutes before a loaded gun is produced. Not unusual considering Ash is Purest White revolves around two gangsters, but this is mid-90s China and unregister firearms are illegal and come with a heavy penalty. Just showing someone the gun is enough to make your point; firing it would seal your fate. Qiao (Tao Zhao) is the girlfriend, and Bin (Fan Liao) is the gangster on his way up. Rival gangs are a constant menace, and sudden attacks are a way of life. Most are harmless, a few are even a simple case of mistaken identity, … Continue reading DFF Review — ASH IS PUREST WHITE (江湖儿女)
