Get TIO in your Inbox!

Culture

[click "Play" to hear Erika Gordon speak about "For All Mankind"]

For.all.mankind Thought "Avatar" was out of this world? This film is over the moon.

The Telluride Film Festival presents "For All Mankind" (1989, 80 minute), part of the ongoing educational/entertainment series, Sunday At The Palm. The dazzling Oscar-nominated National Geographic documentary tells the story of the 24 men who traveled to the moon, in their own words, using their own images of the experience.


The space race effectively ended in July 1969 when Apollo 11 met President Kennedy's challenge of landing a man on the moon and return him safely to earth, but there were flights before and after the big headline. "For All Mankind" features breathtaking, never-before-seen footage, a composite of nine lunar flights between December 1968 and November 1972. To make "For All Mankind," journalist-turned-director Al Reinert had to sift through six million feet of film footage and 80 hours of interviews. (Reinert subsequently co-scripted Ron Howard's acclaimed "Apollo 13.")
23 April, 2010 /

Clashofthetitans_smallteaser2 Howtotrainyourdragon_smallfinal "How to Train Your Dragon" is the early movie all week at Telluride's Nugget Theatre. It is rated PG but viewer reviews indicate that even young kids are enjoying the movie, and the critics mostly agree. Animation, a too-smart boy, an injured dragon... Sounds like a good family evening.

Perseus has his job cut out for him: the mortals have had it with dealing with the whims of the gods on Olympus. "Clash of the Titans" (PG-13) is Homer on steroids. Zeus has given him a number of tasks, as readers of Greek mythology will remember: capturing Pegasus, dealing with Medusa, etc. Roger Ebert liked it- good enough for me.

See below for showtimes, and the Nugget website for trailers and reviews.

22 April, 2010 /

IMG_5475 The prestigious Telluride Film Festival ranks among the world’s best film festivals and is an annual gathering of cinema enthusiasts, filmmakers, critics and industry insiders. The annual event is considered a major launching ground for the fall season’s most talked-about films.

Co-founded in 1974 by Tom Luddy, James Card, and Bill and Stella Pence, Telluride Film Festival, nestled in the beautiful mountain town of Telluride, Colorado, is a four-day international educational event celebrating the art of film. The Telluride Film Festival’s long-standing commitment is to bring filmmakers and film connoisseurs together to experience great cinema. The exciting schedule, kept secret until Opening Day, consists of film debuts with filmmakers presenting their works, special Guest Director programs, three major Tributes to guest artists and remarkable treasures from the past. Festival headquarters are in Berkeley, California.

21 April, 2010 /

Tia 1 "Tia Fuller’s sophomore release on Mack Avenue, "Decisive Steps," is a beautiful, musical journey. It has been a wonderful experience, watching Tia blossom from an eager music student in high school, to being known as one of the “up and coming” saxophonists and composers in the jazz world. Just like the Montgomery and Marsalis families, Denver’s Fuller Family is filled with talent and their musical roots run deep."
Susan Gatschet Reese
Assistant Program Director/On Air Host
jazz89 KUVO/KVJZ Vail

Telluride Inside... and Out has spent a whirlwind week in Denver. Friday evening we caught Tia Fuller's set at Denver jazz hotspot, Dazzle. Fuller was in town celebrating the recent release of her CD, "Decisive Steps" for the Mack Avenue label.

19 April, 2010 /
IMG_1808 Telluride Inside... and Out scratched the surface of Denver's robust art scene, visiting two major public spaces and our favorite gallery.

IMG_1815 On a beautiful albeit very windy Spring afternoon, we made a pilgrimage to see Henry Moore (1898 – 1986) in the Denver Botanic Gardens and were blown away (very nearly literally). The show, the very first major outdoor exhibition of the artist's works in the American West, features 20 monumental sculptures, primarily bronze, some fiberglass, by the celebrated Brit, from a reclining " Naked Maya" stretching nearly 30 feet long and dominating a grassy knoll to an tender depiction of  a mother cradling a child, standing under three feet tall, hidden in a clearing.
19 April, 2010 /
Mariela-in-the-Desert-main419.sflb Mariela's bummed, and Jose is in a major slump, but Telluride Inside... and Out is riding a wave that just won't quit on our whirlwind tour of Denver's rich cultural landscape.

Encouraged by Telluride Inside... and Out contributor and member of the Denver Center Company, Tracy Shaffer, on Wednesday night we attended a performance of Karen Zacarias' Award-winning play "Mariela in the Desert" at the Denver Center's Ricketson Theatre,  a tour de force of magical realism –  ghosts live and paint brushes are weapons –  that left us dumbstruck and moved to tears.
18 April, 2010 /
20100414144858896 There is absolutely positively nothing fishy about the collaboration between the Telluride Film Festival and the award-winning Wilkinson Public Library – except the stench from the derring-do portrayed in director Hubert Sauper's "Darwin's Nightmare."

The gripping documentary exposing the booming multinational industry of fish and weapons is part of the "All About Food" series, which continues Monday, April 19, with a pre-SHOW reception starting at 5:30 p.m.

Back in the days of the flower children and the Cold War, the Soviets dumped a non-native fish into Lake Victoria, Tanzania. The profoundly predatory Nile Perch went on a rampage, killing off most of the indigenous species. There was collateral damage too, on the human population, as farmers became fisherman to satisfy the Russian and European demand for fish. Filming undercover, gave Sauper access to a range of people affected, from businessmen and pilots to peasants, prostitutes, and EU politicos, his camera exploring the altogether devastating effects of globalization on one Tanzanian village.
18 April, 2010 /

Hottubtimemachine_smallposter Alice_in_wonderland_depp_movie_poster7 Telluride's Nugget Theatre has two films on the program this week, Friday, April 16-22: "Alice in Wonderland" and "Hot Tub Time Machine". In addition, on Thursday, April 22, the Telluride Film Festival will present "The Ghost Writer".

"Alice" (Rated PG) is Tim Burton's take on the Lewis Carroll classic. In Burton's hands, this is not your mother's bedtime story for tots. This is the second week in Telluride for "Alice".

To get a handle on "Hot Tub Time Machine" we need to accept the  possibility that a ski vacation hot tub can turn back the clock, give a bunch of buddies a big do-over. It's rated R for the reasons you probably already guessed. Not "War and Peace" but probably fun in the right frame of mind. And the cast includes John Cusack and Rob Corddry.

Theghostwriter_smallposter The Telluride Film Festival offering is "The Ghost" (rated PG-13), which is the story of a ghost writer called on to re-write history for a British prime minister, who may remind one of Tony Blair. There probably is a price to pay for not telling the approved version. Roman Polanski directs.

See below for showtimes, and the Nugget website for reviews and trailers.


15 April, 2010 /
IMGP1119 "Opus." The word is Latin for work, but it was no work at all. The experience was, top to bottom, a pleasure.

Yesterday, Telluride Inside... and Out headed to the Curious Theatre Company for a Sunday matinee of Michael Hollinger's "Opus," a play about drugs (medicinal), sex (past and future and only insinuated), and chamber music, along with our friend and regular Denver writer, Tracy Shaffer. (Tracy, also a member of the Denver Center company and regular in the Denver theatre scene, just completed a run as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate.")
14 April, 2010 /

Aliceinwonderland_smallcharacter Telluride's Nugget Theatre will show "Alice in Wonderland" for the week of Friday, April 9 - Thursday, April 15. Showtimes are 7:30 pm nightly. The movie is rated PG.

"Alice" may never really have been a children's tale, and this Tim Burton version is decidedly dark, hence the PG rating. Mia Wasikowska has been praised for her Alice and the versatile Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter. All the familiar Lewis Carroll characters are here, but Alice has been reimagined as a 19 year old, and that has implications. Should be intereting.

See the Nugget website for trailers and reviews.

08 April, 2010 /