The Reel Deal: Vail Film Festival
Widely considered one of the best destination film festivals around, the 9th Annual Vail Film Festival(VFF) opened last night at the luxurious Sebastian Hotel, Solaris Plaza and Cinebistro, and Vail Mountain School with a mix of street beats, shorts, and savage wit. On center stage was The Eye of the Storm, a devilishly dark look...
The Reel Deal: 2012 Oscars
SILENCE IS GOLDEN The 84th Academy Awards will be presented live at the Kodak Theatre on Sunday, February 26th, but not without a tinge of controversy. As you may recall, in November, the Academy was left in a mad scramble to cast a new team when former producer, Brett Ratner, resigned after discussing his sex...
The Reel Deal: 8th Annual Boulder International Film Festival
The Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) has quietly emerged as one of the ‘coolest film festivals in the world.’ Celebrating the spirit of Independent Film for the last 8 years, the BIFF annually pays tribute to films and filmmakers from around the world with screenings, parties, workshops, red carpet premieres, and many star sightings like...
The Reel Deal: 2012 Movie Preview
So far, the 2012 movie cycle is off to a fairly predictable start as Hollywood waits to crown its Best Picture for 2011 at the Oscars (Sunday, February 26th) while simultaneously, rolling out many unsavory leftovers to fill the void before spring. Among them, One for the Money, The Vow, Underworld Awakening, Red Tails, Loosies,...
The Reel Deal: Top 10 Movies of 2011
We sure do love our sequels, don’t we? They’re comfortable and cozy. They’re mindless and blandly entertaining. They feature recycled characters and plots. And they’re relatively cheap and easy to make, which equates to instant “bankability” at the box office, i.e. Hollywood’s own version of Moneyball. So, it should come as no surprise that we...
The Reel Deal: It’s a Wrap
After twelve days of sensational cinema, the 34th Annual Starz Denver Film Festival came to a close on Sunday. But not before breaking last year’s records in attendance (+50,000), number of films screened (250), and number of countries represented (47). One of the region’s leading film events, the SDFF entertained thousands of cinephiles and welcomed...
The Reel Deal: Discovering Documentaries
Over the years, Colorado has developed some serious game when it comes to documentary filmmaking. In 1997, Donna Dewey took home an Oscar for her short, A Story of Healing, detailing the charitable efforts of American plastic surgeons helping Vietnamese children born with physical defects. Then, in 2010, Louie Psihoyos’ The Cove captured the Academy...
The Reel Deal: Stars Aplenty
Last week, the 34rd Annual Starz Denver Film Festival launched with a frenzy of red carpet roll outs. On opening night, director Drake Doremus ushered in the Denver premiere of Like Crazy, a love story for the Y Generation, depicting a heartbreaking romance across two continents. Doremus easily won the crowd over with his film....
The Reel Deal: Colorado Filmmaker Spotlight
The lack of filmmaking incentives in Colorado is well documented. And yet, Colorado filmmaking continues to thrive, as many filmmakers prefer to stay and work locally rather than move to Los Angeles or New York. In 2009, three films with Colorado connections made their way to the Academy Awards. Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’...
The Reel Deal: 34th Annual Starz Denver Film Festival
It’s early November. There are blizzard warnings, 10-12 inches of snow, and temperatures dipping into the teens. But ask any rabid Denver cinefile and they’ll gladly tell you that this is all par for the course. Quite simply, no better time to go indoors and enjoy the warmth and wonder of the movies. Especially those...
The Reel Deal: Planet of the Apes
“Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” Those famous words are uttered by George Taylor (played by Charlton Heston), an astronaut held captive by gorillas in Franklin Schaffner’s sci-fi classic, Planet of the Apes (1968). Adapted from Pierre Boulle’s novel, La planete des singes, the film tells the story of a group...
