Hey everyone, Ben here. I'm hard at work on my preview of the 33rd annual Starz Denver Film Festival. With a little bit of luck and a lot of elbow grease, it'll be posted by tomorrow night, giving you just enough time to sift through The Movie Advocate's picks and recommendations before the festival's opening night on Wednesday.
Today, I'm happy to announce that addition to tomorrow's preview and the ensuing day-by-day fest coverage that we'll be hosting here, The Movie Advocate will be teaming up with the totally stupendous and rad music blog Tome to the Weather Machine for some specifically music related festival coverage. Tome to the Weather Machine is run by local Denver musical man-about-town Crawford Philleo and SLC's Ryan Hall. If you haven't been reading them, they've been doing a fantastic job staying of the forefront of the hottest, freshest groups and tracks in both the local and national scenes.
“But Ben,” you ask, “This is a film festival, not a music festival. What gives?” What gives is that when the festival lineup was announced a couple of weeks ago, I was immediately struck by how many music related movies were playing this year. From documentaries tracing the crosscurrents between New York punk music and film to a fictional search for rock star fame and glory in Tulsa, OK (?) to noise ordinances threatening the Austin music scene to a rapping cowboy to a ballerina in a Tchaikovsky ballet who may or may not be turning into an evil swan monster, this year's DFF lineup offers a smorgasbord of musical musings.
As an active member in both Denver's local movie and music scenes, I am very keen for the exchange of ideas between these two stimulating avenues of artistic pursuit. By crossposting The Movie Advocate's music movie coverage on Tome to the Weather Machine, Crawford, Ryan, and myself hope to foster interest and cross-pollination between these two vibrant communities. Denver excels now more than ever in both music and movies, and I'd say it's time for aficionados of both to get reacquainted.
-Ben