Saturday, November 10, 2007

STARZ DENVER FILM FESTIVAL ON NOW, EARLY PICS AND RECOMMENDATION FOR GALA EVENTS

The Starz Denver Film Festival has now commenced!  This year marks the 30th anniversary of the event, so it is destined to be off the charts in both festive spirit and great audiences.  There are many ways to approach the festival, but any serious film-goer has likely already acquired their festival package which allows access into all film screenings and special events.  Its like the American Express card only you pay for it once at the beginning of the festival and its accepted everywhere!  Preferential treatment can be so sublime, but more passive fans can simply pick up a festival guide (located all over town) and choose through select films to watch on available nights.  We do recommend Saturday night's evening gala which features an elegant sit-down dinner and red-carpet treatment for the film "Juno" followed by the glamorous Desert Reception in the Lobbie of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.   We could give you all the details but recommend going to their website and getting the full scoop at www.denverfilm.org

So what does this year have to offer in regards to films?  We can only speculate, our advance screening report will come next week sometime, but for now we can certainly point out some treasures that we'd certainly be putting on our wish list.  The big talk of this years Cannes festival and winner of the coveted jury award "4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days" will screen, as well as that festival's supposed sleeper hit  "Caramel," the former from Romania and the latter set in Lebanon.  Former Art-star Julian Schnabel's latest "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was also highly touted as it made the rounds at earlier fests, proving there's still more glamour being a filmmaker than simply a visual artist.  Jacques Rivette, one of the most exceptional French directors perennially associated with the French New Wave, returns with the goods once again in the form of "The Duchess of Langeais" starring the devastatingly watchable Jeanne Balibar.  Another of my favorite French auteurs (and always considered a provocatuer beyond parallel) taking to the screen is Catherine Breillat, whose "The Last Mistress" features a rather risque performance from Italian diva Asia Argento.  Hungarian Director Peter Forgacs also returns to Denver with "Miss Universe 1929," his latest project since "El Perro Negro" screened to widespread international acclaim (and rightly so).  Finally, one of the most talked about animated films of the year "Persepolis" from celebrated comic-book artist by way of Iran Marjane Satrapi will have a screening at the King Center.

Also making the wish list on a speculative and artistically associated basis are "Austrian Avant-Gard" which thankfully returns after a year or two hiatus from the program, "The Cool School" which follows and glorifies the Los Angeles art scene in parallel to NY and the rest of the world, "Black White + Gray" which is undeniably cool as it covers the life of art collector Sam Wagstaff as he shaped the career of Robert Mapplethrope, "Lynch" which is about, you guessed it, David Lynch, and "A Walk into the Sea: Danny WIlliams and the Warhol Factory," which could very well be testing the current cache of the most pop, pop, popular artist of all time.  We'll take a chance and find out.  Hands down the best film description in the program guide is for "Frownland," which goes like this........."Nails on a chalkboard realism defines the fiercely independent feature Frownland, which follows Keith Sontag - a self described troll from under the bridge - as he leads his tortuous life in New York's outer suburbs, hocking coupon books door-to-door and arousing antipathy in everyone around him."........how could you not want to watch that!