Get TIO in your Inbox!

Film

[click "Play" to listen to Erika Gordon about "Sunday at the Palm"] 

Raiders11x17

The Telluride Film Festival leaves no child – or parent – behind. It is an educational engine that runs throughout the year. This Sunday, September 28, the Telluride Film Festival in collaboration with the Telluride R-1 School District and The Telluride Foundation re-opens the 2009/2010 Sunday at the Palm season with the first in a series of films that are free and open to the general public. Show time is 4 p.m.

Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones is an Everyman for all seasons, the quintessential action hero, both vulnerable and charming. In the four-time Oscar winner "Raiders of the Lost Ark," he shows everyone, not just the smart-mouthed, hard-drinking Marion Ravenwood, a real good time.

25 September, 2009 /

"Tarantino films have a way of growing on you. It’s not enough to see them once." (Roger Ebert) Quentin Tarantino; a war movie; the Hero, the Nazi, the Girl. With me so far? Enough said? And to Roger Ebert's point (see above), "Inglourious Basterds"...

24 September, 2009 /

Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library and the Telluride Historical Museum are presenting a free movie, "The Soul of a People" tonight, Wednesday, September 23. Showtime is 6:00 pm at the Library program room. The film is set during the Great Depression, and documents the...

23 September, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Sophia Tolstoy Penkrat]


IMG_5370

Over Labor Day weekend, Michael Hoffman's "The Last Station" enjoyed an auspicious world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.

At the heart of the soaring biopic is a conundrum: author Leo Tolstoy's (Christopher Plummer) struggle in the last years of his life to balance fame and fortune with a commitment to a life devoid of material possessions. Weighing in for privilege is Tolstoy's wife of 48 years (and 13 children) Sofya (Helen Mirren). Her opponent in the debate is proto-Communist Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), head of the Tolstoyan movement, a quasi political cult, which advocates pacifism, social equality, vegetarianism, and celibacy. The referee in the pitched battle is Tolstoy's secretary, Valentin Bulgakov, (James McAvoy).

21 September, 2009 /

Aliensintheattic_200905151038 Juliejulia_200905051045 Telluride's Nugget Theatre is screening four movies in the week of September 8-24. The beginning of the week features "Julie and Julia" and "Aliens in the Attic" with a Saturday matinee showing of "Aliens in the Attic."

Starting Sunday, September 20 "The Time Traveler's Wife" is paired with "Julie and Julia" then a program change on Thursday, with two showings of "The Hurt Locker."

"Julie and Julia" is Nora Ephron's adaptation of two books, one the story of Julia Childs (Meryl Streep) and the other by Julie Powell (Amy Adams), who got a book contract by taking one year to cook every recipe in Julia Childs' famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking. (Rated PG-13 mostly for some profanity.)

17 September, 2009 /
[double click to view in larger format]

Following their visit to Telluride and total immersion in the Telluride Film Festival, four young Russian directors are heading for Boulder, Colorado, to present their work and meet fellow students at the University of Colorado before traveling on to New York for a screening at Tribeca Cinemas.

Natalya Govorina's "Sanatorium," was named Best Narrative Film at the 2008 Moscow Festival of Short Film.

16 September, 2009 /
[double click to view in larger format]

Film is a window on the world. The Telluride Film Festival uses the medium to enhance participants worldview, one reason the directors require an artistic as well as a screen presence. In-depth Q & A sessions follow many of the screenings.  Free seminars in town parks  and "Conversations" at the courthouse feature celebrated guests talking about cinema, culture, and the culture of cinema. Programs such as City Lights and the Student Symposium offer high school and college students respectively a weekend of immersion in film and film discussion. Sunday at the Palm provides local teachers with curriculum ideas to incorporate monthly film selections into lesson plans.

In this context, From Russia with Love is not the second film in the James Bond series. From Russia with Love describes a partnership between the Telluride Film Festival and CEC ArtsLink to co-host a group of emerging filmmakers from Russia for a residency that brought them first to Telluride over the long Labor Day festival weekend. Last year, the young Russian directors screened their films at the Telluride Film Festival. This year they came as observers. (New projects will be screened in Boulder, Colorado and New York.) Participants were selected for their cinematic accomplishments in a competitive nomination process.

15 September, 2009 /

IMG_5491
Anne Thompson, George
Gittoes, Nicholas Cage,
and Jason Reitman
at Labor Day seminar

The Telluride Film Festival invented downsizing: for 36 years, the directors of the event have selected just 20 – 30 movies from among the hundreds submitted to them each year, which explains why the celluloid celebration appeals to discriminating cinephiles. Elitist? Unapologetically. This year as every year, the Telluride Film Festival shunned the usual suspects, going out on a limb to inspire and educate.

The Telluride Film Festival is also about making connections. Over the long Labor Day weekend, the tail end of moviedom's so-called popcorn season (Memorial Day – Labor Day), actors, directors, cinematographers, producers, distributers, and buffs chat like long lost friends on Main Street, the Gondola, and in lines, about what gladdened, saddened and maddened.

14 September, 2009 /

District9_smallposter2 "District 9" is this week's movie at Telluride's Nugget Theatre. The aliens came to Earth 30 years ago. As it turned out, they were survivors of a dying world, and brought neither the threat of interplanetary war nor wonderful technological advances, so they were consigned to a refugee camp in South Africa while the world decided what to do with them.

Impatience with this situation comes to a head as a multi-national company with no reason except profit to care about the creatures under its control, looks for ways to profit from the responsibility it has undertaken.

The movie is rated R for violience and language. Check the Nugget website for reviews and trailers. See below for movie times.

12 September, 2009 /

IMG_5356 Director Todd Solondz, whose "Life During Wartime," had its North American premiere this past weekend at the Telluride Film Festival, is distinguished as an independent filmmaker who dares to go places others fear to tread. Solondz takes on universal themes – "Life During Wartime" is about forgiving and forgetting –  in character-driven stories whose denizens are quirky in the extreme. In high relief under bright lights, these eccentric individuals become Everyman, warts and all. The character actors in "Life During Wartime," both young and old, are fearless, giving flawless performances of very flawed individuals.

09 September, 2009 /