Filmmaker Panel - Sunday

Filmmaker Discussion Panel from the 2009 Indie Spirit Film Festival in Colorado Springs. Saturday panel included moderator Warren Epstein from the Colorado Springs Gazette, Director Pete Schuermann, Producer Mike Elkin, and Special EFX artist Christopher Payne.

Thank you to Jill Thomas (Independent) and Warren Epstein (The Gazette) for moderating the discussions. Steve Mack from Colorado Springs Film and Networking Group for filming, editing and all around putting these videos together.

Jul 9, 2009
3rd screen.

Hello moviegoers,

Here is some pictures of the 3rd screen which is being built now.

How the lobby looks now.

Hole. Big Hole.

Our golden hallway.

Projection booth, so far. We still need a projector, sound system, etc.

More pictures coming soon.

Jul 6, 2009
Moon - Opens July 10

Hello Film Fans,

I went to the CineVegas Film Festival last month and saw Duncan Jones' new film, "Moon." The movie is true to it's science fiction genre and not about special effects (Not saying it doesn't have some ground breaking effects).

I've attached 5 clips from the film.

July 10-12: (12:45; 3:00; 5:30) 8:00
July 13-16: (3:00; 5:30) 8:00
Trailer - Click Here

Jun 29, 2009
Away We Go - Trivia and Answers

Q: What was Director Sam Mendes first feature directorial film?

A: American Beauty (2005)

Q: John Krasinski has already worked with Sam Mendes on what previous film?

A: Jarhead (2005)

Q: John Krasinski’s character, Corporal Harrigan, studied classics at Dartmouth only to write letters for what?

A: Love letters for the Major.

Q: Maya Rudolph join what band after graduating college?
    (Hint: The band was formed by Weezer’s former bassist, Matt Sharp)

A: The Rentals

Q: Maya Rudolph had her first child (and is expecting her second) with what famous director?
A: Paul Thomas Anderson, director of “There Will Be Blood.”

Q: John Krasinski first stage experience was starring in a satirical high school play written and cast by what current cast member and writer of “The Office?”

A: B.J. Novak. Additionally John also played on the same little league baseball team with B.J. Novak.

Q: Dave Eggers, co-writer of “Away We Go,” has another film he co-wrote with Spike Jonze which is coming out this October. What is that film?

(Hint: An adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's story.)

A: “Where the Wild Things Are”

Q: What Actress dropped out of Away We Go due scheduling conflicts and was replaced with Maggie Gyllenhaal?

A: Toni Collette

Q: Sam Mendes is married to what famous Actress?

(Hint: She was in Revolutionary Road.)

A: Kate Winslet.

Q: Away We Go is the first “Sam Mendes” film to not use what famous music composer?

Jun 27, 2009
Let's All Go to the Lobby...

This made me smile, I hope you enjoy.

Jun 25, 2009
Away We Go: Review

Away We Go
They're young, sane, and in love.
So okay, what do they do now?

Release Date: 2009

Ebert Rating: ***½    

by Roger Ebert

Burt and Verona are two characters rarely seen in the movies: thirtysomething, educated, healthy, self-employed, gentle, thoughtful, whimsical, not neurotic and really truly in love. Their great concern is finding the best place and way to raise their child, who is a bun still in the oven. For every character like this I’ve seen in the last 12 months, I’ve seen 20, maybe 30, mass murderers.

Sam Mendes’ “Away We Go” is a film for nice people to see. Nice people also go to “Terminator Salvation,” but it doesn’t make them any nicer. “Away We Go” opened last week in New York and Los Angeles, and now rolls out after lukewarm reviews accusing Verona and Burt of being smug, superior and condescending. These are not sins if you have something to be smug about and much reason to condescend.

Are the supporting characters caricatures or simply a cross-section of the kinds of grotesques we usually meet in movies? I use the term grotesque as Sherwood Anderson does in Winesburg, Ohio: a person who has one characteristic exaggerated beyond all scale with the others.

Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) live not far from his parents, in an underheated, shabby home with a cardboard-covered window. “We don’t live like grown-ups,” Verona observes. It’s not that they can’t afford a better home, as much that they are stalled in an impoverished student lifestyle. Now that they’re about to become parents, they can’t keep adult life on hold.

“Away We Go” is about an unplanned odyssey they take around North America to visit friends and family, and essentially do some comparison shopping among lifestyles. Her parents are dead, so they begin with his: Gloria (Catherine O’Hara) and Jerry (Jeff Daniels). The parents truly are self-absorbed, and have no wish to wait around to welcome their first grandchild. They’re moving to Antwerp.

Verona is of mixed race, and Gloria asks her conversationally, “Will the baby be black?” Is this insensitive? Why? Parents on both sides of an interracial couple would naturally wonder, and the film’s ability to ask the question is not racist, but matter of fact in a America slowly growing tolerant. In moments like that, the married screenwriters, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida (both novelists and magazine publishers), reflect a society in which race is no longer the primary defining characteristic.

After the parents vote for Belgium, Burt and Verona head for Phoenix and a visit with her onetime boss Lily (Allison Janney) and her husband Lowell (Jim Gaffigan). Lily is a monster, a daytime alcoholic whose speech is grossly offensive, and her husband and children in shock. They flee to Madison, where Burt’s childhood friend Ellen (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has changed her name to “LN” and become one of those rigid campus feminists who have banned human nature from their rule book.

Then it’s off to Montreal for friends from college, Tom and Munch (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey), who are unhappily convinced they’re happy. And next down to Miami and Burt’s brother, whose wife has abandoned her family. There’s not a single example of healthy parenting in the lot of them.

The almost perfect relationship of the unmarried Verona and Burt seems to survive inside a bubble of their own devising, and since they can blow that bubble anywhere, they of course find the perfect home for it, in a scene of uncommon sunniness. They have been described as implausibly ideal, but you know what? So are their authors, Eggers and Vida. They are thirtysomethings. With two children. Novelists and essayists. He publishes McSweeney’s, she edits the Believer.

They are playful but also socially committed. Consider his wonderful project “826 Valencia,” a nonprofit storefront operation in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Boston and Ann Arbor, Mich. It runs free tutoring and writing workshops for young people from ages 6 to 18. The playful part can be seen in San Francisco, where the front of the ground floor is devoted to a Pirate Store. Yes. With eye patches, parrot’s perches, beard dye, peg legs, planks for walking — all your needs.

I submit that Eggers and Vida are admirable people. If their characters find they are superior to many people, well, maybe they are. “This movie does not like you,” sniffs Tony Scott of the New York Times. Perhaps with good reason.

Cast & Credits

Burt John Krasinski
Verona Maya Rudolph
Gloria Catherine O’Hara
Jerry Jeff Daniels
Lily Allison Janney
LN Maggie Gyllenhaal
Munch Melanie Lynskey

Focus Features presents a film directed by Sam Mendes. Written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. Running time: 97 minutes. Rated R (for obscenity and sexual situations).

Jun 24, 2009
Away We Go - Prizes and more...

This weekend, June 26-28, Kimball's will be giving out 'swag' for the new release film, "Away We Go," directed by Sam Mendes and starring John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph.

We have t-shirts, soundtracks, mini-posters, and the film screenplay (paperback) versions from the film.

Kimball's employee, Jourdan, shows off all the cool swag.

Please note: Giveaways will only be this weekend, June 26-28, and only for patrons who purchase tickets for "Away We Go." Giveaways will be before the movie begins and are trivia based. Good Luck.
Supplies are limited.

Showtimes for Fri-Sun: (12:45; 3:15; 5:45) 7:55
Showtimes for Mon-Thur: (3:15; 5:45) 7:55