Contact Us Advertising Information Online exclusives Cover Story Buzz Feature In Case You Missed It Vote 2009 Boulderganic Fall 2009 Student Guide 2009 Boulder Weekly Sweet 16 Anniversary Boulderganic 2009 Summer Scene 2009 Email Newsletter Legal Services Best of Boulder 2009 Annual Manual 2009 Newspaper of the Future Kids Camp Guide 2009 Wedding Marketplace 09 Jobs available Student Guide 2008 Best of Boulder 2008 Annual Manual 2008 Join Our Mailing List
|
April 16-22, 2009
buzz@boulderweekly.com
Absurdistan
When the men in a fictional village neglect to maintain their water pipeline in favor of drinking in the pub and boasting about their great sex lives, they pin all their hopes on Temelko, a young villager they send to school in the city to learn how to save their water system. Temelko, however, is distracted from his task by his love for his betrothed, Aya. When he returns and diverts the town’s meager supply of water for their pre-consummation ritual bath, Aya’s indignant refusal of Temelko inspires a Lysistrata-style action among the village women, who all refuse sex to their mates until the pipeline is fixed. Director Veit Helmer (Tuvalu) presents this allegorical tale using only a voiceover and no dialogue, eliciting humorous, physical performances from his multiethnic cast. Not rated. At International Film Series — IFS
Adventureland
This sweet, sharp coming-of-age romance is a little warmer, a little funnier and a lot more truthful than the last 20 or 30 of its ilk. You know the kind: R-rated comedies about socially maladroit horndogs on the brink of adulthood, partying and setting their sights on the rest of their lives. All this happens in Adventureland — set in 1987, mostly within the confines of a Pittsburgh amusement park — yet the characters, female as well as male, interact like real people. It’s my favorite American movie so far this year. Rated R (language, drug use and sexual references). At Century and Twin Peaks. — Michael Phillips
 Brazil (1985)
Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece is the ultimate dystopia-now film because it is commonly misconstrued as a film about the future when, in fact, what it really did was condense the century in which it was created (the 20th century) into an alternate universe. Its message about terrorism, bureaucracy, and torture are, unfortunately, more relevant than ever. Rated R. At International Film Series. — IFS
The Class
This fantastic film takes place in a working-class, multi-ethnic Parisian middle school, where an unruly world of conflict, frustration and joy comes to life. Francois Begaudeau plays a version of himself; he taught in a Paris middle school and wrote a book about it, and The Class distills that book into a year in the life of a teacher and his combative, highly stimulating students. A documentary approach is the key to the film’s success, with real students playing characters, some based on themselves, some not. In French, with English subtitles. Rated PG-13 (language). At Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Duplicity
Last seen together in Closer, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play dueling corporate spies caught up in a cross/double-cross plot that starts coiling around itself like a snake. And, of course, there’s time for a little romance between the two stars. Duplicity is pure artifice, without any moral reckoning or higher intentions. Mainly it’s a classy excuse to hang out with Roberts and Owen and their wardrobes for a couple of hours. Rated PG-13 (language and some sexual content). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Examined Life
In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West — perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual — compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it. Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
Fast & Furious
If you’re in the mood for a lot of vroom, vroom, thump, thump, the fourth installment in the metal-twisting series that began with The Fast and the Furious (2001) should leave you satiated for a long time. The return of Vin Diesel restores energy to the franchise, and director Justin Lin infuses the necessary full-throttle bits with a dynamic lyricism. The plot isn’t really important as long as you know there are plenty of extreme and extended demolition derbies — countless cars gave their lives to make this movie possible. Rated R (language, drug use and sexual references). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Michael Phillips
Good Days on the Trail
Featuring historical footage of University of Colorado student alpine hikes in the Front Range mountains, this silent color film provides a unique glimpse into the mountaineering lifestyle and familiar landscapes of the past. Live narration by local scientists from CU’s National Snow and Ice Data Center and elsewhere. Not rated. At International Film Series. — IFS
Hannah Montana: The Movie
See full screen review on page 59. Rated PG. At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks.
Harvard Beats Yale
An extraordinary retelling of one of the most famous college football games in history, filmmaker Kevin Rafferty’s (The Atomic Café) documentary combines rare footage of the wildly unpredictable 1968 game with unguarded, politically charged recollections from the original players. The two squads, both of which entered the contest undefeated, included a Vietnam vet, as well as members of both paramilitary and antiwar groups; at Harvard, the team also included actor Tommy Lee Jones (who reminisces about his roommate Al Gore), while Yale’s star quarterback Brian Dowling became the inspiration for B.D., the jock character in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” comic strip. As Jones puts it, “ideas were flying around like bullets” — as becomes clear by the end of the film, this was a social experience that resonated well beyond one Saturday afternoon on the playing field. Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
The Haunting in Connecticut
There’s not much wrong with the house in this movie that a little WD-40 couldn’t cure. Everything creaks, including the dialogue. This so-so horror flick, supposedly based on a true story, bumps along from low-grade scare to scare, and it’s not lousy, mainly because Virginia Madsen prevents it from being so. It offers the requisite “jump” bits, and director Peter Cornwell manages some evocatively grisly images of long-ago mortuary activity and necromancy and PG-13-level nastiness. Rated PG-13 (some intense sequences of terror and disturbing images). At Flatiron. — Michael Phillips
Hot Summer (1968)
In this East German teen musical, a group of girls from Leipzig are planning to take their summer vacation together on the Baltic coast, when they learn that an obnoxious group of boys have the same vacation plans. This is East Germany’s own unique version of Grease. In German with subtitles. At Boulder Public Library — BPL Film Program
I Love You, Man
This minor but enjoyable entry in the boy-man comedy genre stars Paul Rudd as a heterosexual L.A. real estate agent engaged to be married but short on straight-up male companionship in general and a best man for his wedding in particular. Along comes a sometime investment whiz (Jason Segel) living the life of a Venice Beach slacker. How these two meet and bond leads to much engaging time-wasting. Rated R (pervasive language, including crude and sexual references). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Ink
As the light fades and the city goes to sleep, two forces emerge. They are invisible except for the power they exert over us in our sleep. These two groups battle for our souls in our dreams. Through good dreams one force supports our hopes and gives us strength. Through nightmares the other force leads us toward desperation.
In this high-concept visual thriller, part It’s a Wonderful Life and Sin City, John and his daughter Emma are thrust into a fantastical dreamworld battle between good and evil where the most precious elements — love, loss and redemption — are at stake. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
Knowing
Nicolas Cage plays a man privy to the details of upcoming disasters — when, where and how many people will die. Until it jumps the tracks into self-righteousness, Knowing can be as unnerving as the best episodes of The Twilight Zone. This slice of disaster porn dabbles in faith and doubt and has no patience for fence-sitters. And by the way, isn’t Cage due to make a high-quality film one of these days? Rated PG-13 (disaster sequences, disturbing images and brief strong language). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Christopher Borrelli
Monsters vs. Aliens
DreamWorks’ animated 3-D feature is blessed with a high-concept title and Seth Rogen’s serenely dense line readings in the role of a genetically altered tomato gone wrong. But much of the project went wrong somewhere, along with the tomato. The script piles on the mayhem and forgets the funny. To add insult to a paucity of jokes, the look of the picture is cold and oddly flat. This story of imprisoned monsters and rampaging aliens centers on a woman (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) who is creamed by a meteor that turns her into a giant. Rated PG (sci-fi action, some crude humor and mild language). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Observe and Report
See full screen review on page 59. At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks.
Only Two Can Play (1962)
A village librarian is bored with his job and henpecked at home. The wife of a local councilor sets her sights on him. Based on the novel That Uncertain Feeling by KingsleyAmis. Stars Peter Sellers. At Boulder Public Library. — BPL Film Program
Race to Witch Mountain
Benign yet assaultive PG mayhem — it’s a neat trick if you can pull it off. The Walt Disney Co., determined to remake every live-action feature in its canon, brings us a frenetic update of Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) in which Dwayne Johnson reunites with The Game Plan director Andy Fickman. The premise — alien kids with special powers try to get back home — echoes the original, but this hopped-up remake lays on the X-Files paranoia. The charismatic Johnson helps make it work. Rated PG (sequences of action and violence, frightening and dangerous situations, and some thematic elements). At Flatiron. — Michael Phillips
The Reader
Kate Winslet stars in the film version of Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 novel about a 15-year-old West German boy who, in 1958, embarks on an affair with a 36-year-old trolley conductor with more on her mind, and in her past, than she admits. The novel was hugely popular as well as controversial worldwide and an Oprah’s Book Club selection besides. However, it needed a different set of interpreters to make any emotional sense of it on screen. Even in the scenes dominated by Winslet, you never quite believe the way anything unfolds. Rated R (some scenes of sexuality and nudity). At Chez Artiste. — Michael Phillips
Skills Like This
Twenty-five-year-old Max Solomon would like to be a writer, but has to admit he’s just not going to make it with his pen when his play, The Onion Dance, meets with a catastrophic reaction in its opening performance. His best buddies are Dave, who brown-noses his way to a monumentally boring mid-level sales job with no future, and Tommy, a slacker best suited for hanging out in a coffee shop and being funny. With career options like these in front of him, Max commits an impulse bank robbery — of an absolutely unique, but effective, sort. Holding a gun on his own head, he relieves interested teller Lucy of the cash in her register and rejoins his disbelieving but admiring friends. In the next three days, more unusual robberies happen and a compelling romance blooms between Max and Lucy while Dave and Tommy have their lives equally changed and Max has to question his newfound success. Skills Like This is a hilarious, original and freewheeling comedy with a real heart, winner of a well-deserved Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
Speaking in Code
Speaking in Code is a personal journey through a world where people give up everything to be lost in music. A techno lover (and the director’s then-husband) risks it all to change Boston from a rock town into a techno city. A jet-set journalist moves from America to Barcelona seeking a more complete techno lifestyle. An East German DJ duo struggle to adapt to the pressures of unexpected celebrity. A rising Berlin-based producer group face the most nerve-wracking and important performance of their career. While making the film, the director herself gets lost in music, as she puts everything on the line to finish Speaking in Code.
It’s an alternately heartbreaking and lighthearted documentary following a handful of people who make electronic music their lives. Not rated. At International Film Series — IFS
Sunshine Cleaning
Amy Adams and Emily Blunt play sisters who start up an unlicensed crime-scene cleanup business. They’re haunted by the suicide death of their mother; for them the biohazard removal biz is a way of processing their grief, and bringing to survivors the comfort they themselves seek. Certain narrative events are more about dramatic convenience than the mess of real life. But it helps to have actresses as vibrant as Adams and Blunt around. Director Christine Jeffs loosens the plotting as best she can, letting the interactions breathe. Rated R (language, disturbing images, some sexuality and drug use). At Century, Colony Square and Mayan. — Michael Phillips
Wild Child (1970)
Francois Truffaut plays the doctor in charge of the celebrated case, based on the true story of an uncivilized boy discovered in the forests of Aveyron, France, in 1799. The doctor’s hypothesis is that experience trains one to learn. He spends five years trying to train and school Victor, as the child comes to be called, but Victor’s inability to process much language — he never learns a word other than “lait” (milk) — raises questions about whether civilization is necessary — or even desirable, for certain people. New 35mm print of Truffaut’s ninth feature. Not rated. At International Film Series. — IFS
back to top
|
| |
