- For real this time...Challengers at the Mayan!Landmark's Mayan Theatre, Denver, CO
First and foremost, many thanks to those of you who RSVP'd to the first scheduling of this and then had to put up with me canceling it. I appreciate your kindness and understanding.
Secondly, and on-topic, it's...Challengers! For real this time! Luca Guadagnino's latest and, somehow, the #1 movie at the box office this past weekend. If somehow you haven't read about it, here's the blurb that makes me intrigued to see it (courtesy of Tim Grierson of the Grierson & Leitch podcast):
A scintillating romantic triangle paired with a gripping sports drama, Challengers finds Luca Guadagnino in crowd-pleasing mode, delivering his most purely entertaining film. As is often the case with the Italian director’s pictures, the fickleness of love is at the centre of this narrative, but never before has he operated with such playful showmanship as he follows the ups and down of best friends, both of whom dream of tennis glory, and the rising star they each covet. Zendaya is superb as the object of their affections, complemented by Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist as longtime buddies who have much to learn both on the court and in the bedroom.
We'll head over again to the Mayan on Saturday afternoon, May 4th. The movie starts at 1:15 and I'll be in the lobby at 12:55 holding a Denver Cinema Club sign. Every attendee is responsible for buying their own ticket. Afterward, if anyone is interested, we'll head over to The Hornet to get some sustenance and dig into the movie. (And, hopefully, one of you fine folks will be able to explain the rules of tennis to me.)
Free parking is available in the lot on Lincoln next to the theater.
- VardaVision #8: Varda by AgnèsSie FilmCenter, Denver, CO
The Sie's excellent Agnès Varda series, VardaVision, concludes with the final film from the late auteur. (NOTE: This Wednesday, May 1, there is NO VARDA, this meetup is for May 8.)
Varda by Agnès is a characteristically playful, profound, and personal summation of the director’s own brilliant career. At once impish and wise, she acts as our spirit guide on a free-associative tour through her six-decade artistic journey, shedding new light on her films, photography, and recent installation works while offering her one-of-a-kind reflections on everything from filmmaking to feminism to aging. Suffused with the people, places, and things she loved—Jacques Demy, cats, colors, beaches, heart-shaped potatoes—this wonderfully idiosyncratic work of imaginative autobiography is a warmly human, touchingly bittersweet parting gift from one of cinema’s most luminous talents.
I will be at a table in the lobby bar area by 6:15 with a Denver Cinema Club sign. The film program (and introduction by UCD Professor Howie Movshovitz) starts at 6:30. After the 90 minute film, we will gather again in the lobby to regroup, then walk to Bruz off Fax for beverages and discussion. Join us!
Buy tickets ($5 for members, $12 for non-members)
See all films in the series and dates (approximately one per week) We plan to have a meetup event for each one, so watch out for those.
Become a Denver Film Member for best pricing and other benefits - What We're Watching with John Anzalone: Frankenstein (1931)Link visible for attendees
Join film professor John Anzalone for an in-depth look at Frankenstein (1931) directed by James Whale starring Boris Karloff. Based on the novel by Mary Shelley. Watch this classic, Universal Pictures movie with your library card on DVD or Blu-ray and then join the discussion. What We're Watching recommendations from participants will also be shared after the discussion.
Join online with Zoom link or dial-in (719) 359-4580 to participate by phone. Meeting ID: 853 2886 1383.
Program will not be recorded.
To request a sign language interpreter or real time captioning via CART Services, please contact SignLanguageServices@denvergov.org or call 720-913-8487, with a minimum three (3) business day notice. To request other accommodations, please contact programs@denverlibrary.org.
Automated voice-to-text captioning is available for all virtual programs.PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A WATCH ON YOUR OWN/JOIN TOGETHER FOR DISCUSSION EVENT, THE MOVIE WILL NOT BE SHOWN DURING PRESENTATION.
- Watch at Home and then Meet - DEEP DIVE into African Film!Edgewater Public Market, Edgewater, CO
Friends, I'm trying something new for the group! We have had watch-at-home-and-meet events to watch one or even two movies, but for the month of May those who are willing will be taking a deep dive into the films of Africa. Over approximately five weeks we will watch eight selected films (four features and four shorts), and then meet on Tuesday June 4 (at Edgewater Public Market) to discuss!
NOTE: We will also meet on Tuesday, May 14th (same location and time) to check in after the first couple of weeks! Watch for a separate meetup for that.
All films are available for free on various platforms but if you have the Criterion Channel many are also available there with interesting extra goodies like commentaries or interviews. All eight come highly recommended and should be diverse, representative, entertaining, and thought provoking.
You don't have to watch them in order, but my hope is that those of us who are watching will encounter one another at other meetups over the month and can share thoughts as we go. I will also post in the comments from time to time if I encounter any interesting tidbits or reviews (and feel free to do the same!)
I don't want this to be too intimidating, so feel free to play along even if you don't intend to watch all eight. And if you get really into it and want EVEN MORE, see my research list where I narrowed a list of 20 films down to these final selections, and dig even deeper!
WIthout further ado, here is the list. It should amount to roughly 2 hours of viewing each week between now and our meetup on June 4 (five weeks).
WEEK ONE
ZOMBIES - a short film from 2019, musical and magical, as an amuse-bouche. View on YouTube (21 minutes) Democratic Republic of the Congo
TOUKI BOUKI - With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. In this French New Wave-influenced fantasy-drama, two young lovers long to leave Dakar for the glamour and comforts of France, but their escape plan is beset by complications both concrete and mystical. Widely considered one of the most important African films ever made.
View on Max or here for free (skip to 12:20 for an intro) or on Criterion with lots of extras
1973 (91 minutes) Senegal
WEEK TWO
THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT'S A RESURRECTION - With a poet’s eye for place, light, and the spiritual dimensions of everyday existence, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese crafts a meditation on the concept of homeland and a transcendent elegy for what is lost in the name of progress.
View on Kanopy or Criterion (with extras)
2019 (120 minutes) Lesotho
WEEK THREE
WHO KILLED CAPTAIN ALEX - Self-proclaimed as "Uganda's First Action Film!" this very homemade, very low-budget production was a huge viral smash. It does not appear to be available anywhere except this YouTube version with an MST3K-style commentary track. It's like two works of art for the price of one! Of our selections, this one is highest rated on Letterboxd, so...
2010 (68 minutes) Uganda
BLACK GIRL - Director Ousmane Sembène, who was also an acclaimed novelist in his native Senegal, transforms a deceptively simple plot—about a young Senegalese woman who moves to France to work for a wealthy white family and finds that life in their small apartment becomes a prison, both figuratively and literally—into a complexly layered critique of the lingering colonialist mind-set of a supposedly postcolonial world. One of the essential films of the 1960s.
Watch on Criterion, Max, Plex (w/ads), or $3 rental on Amazon
1966 (60 minutes) Senegal
WEEK FOUR
OH, SUN (Soleil Ô) - A furious howl of resistance against racist oppression, the debut from Mauritanian director Med Hondo is a bitterly funny, stylistically explosive attack on Western capitalism and the legacy of colonialism.
View on Criterion (with extras) or YouTube
1970 (103 min) Mauritania
PUMZI - An afrofuturist short about a world in ecological collapse.
Watch on YouTube.
2009 (21 min) S. Africa/Kenya
WEEK FIVE
NEPTUNE FROST - Codirected by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, this visually wondrous sci-fi punk musical takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anticolonialist hacker collective.
Watch on Kanopy, Criterion, or $3 Amazon rental
2021 (110 min) Rwanda - What We're Watching with John Anzalone: The Battle of AlgiersLink visible for attendees
Join film professor John Anzalone for an in-depth look at The Battle of Algiers / La battaglia di Algeri (1966), an Italian neorealist war drama directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. Based on a true story and made with mostly non-professional actors who had lived through the real battle. Watch this award-winning movie with your library card on Kanopy and then join the discussion. What We're Watching recommendations from participants will also be shared after the discussion.
Join online with Zoom link or dial-in (719) 359-4580 to participate by phone. Meeting ID: 898 9069 3932.
Program will not be recorded.
To request a sign language interpreter or real time captioning via CART Services, please contact SignLanguageServices@denvergov.org or call 720-913-8487, with a minimum three (3) business day notice. To request other accommodations, please contact programs@denverlibrary.org.
Automated voice-to-text captioning is available for all virtual programs.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A WATCH ON YOUR OWN/JOIN TOGETHER FOR DISCUSSION EVENT, THE MOVIE WILL NOT BE SHOWN DURING PRESENTATION.