A quintet of pathetic pals are sized up in 44 Inch Chest, an often sharp, nasty exposé of masculinity written by Sexy Beast scripters Louis Mellis and David Scinto, reuniting them with that film’s Ray Winstone and Ian McShane. Married for 21 years, Colin (Winstone) is told by wife Liz…
All that remains of Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day is Denzel Washington’s Oscar-winning performance, his baddest and best. The rest of the movie? A blustering stumble toward parody — an overwrought, operatic buddy-cop flip-flop also starring Ethan Hawke as the rookie put to the test again and again by the devil…
Now a 305-minute triptych film, Red Riding originated in the novels of Ossett-bred David Peace, written in Tokyo and published 1999-2002. Looking back without nostalgia to the Yorkshire of his youth, the books summoned what Brit critic Simon Reynolds once called the “sheer crapness of England in the late ’70s,”…
At the Denver Center Theatre Company’s New Play Summit last month, a couple of critics from larger cities were talking about our area’s theatrical offerings. On a Colorado visit some years back, they’d gone to Boulder’s Dinner Theatre — and the show was very good, one of them said with…
Food justice, says Adam Brock, project manager for the GrowHaus, a non-profit urban farm and market in Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood, is about “making good, clean, fair food accessible to everyone, not just people who can afford to shop at Whole Foods.” This zinger seems especially relevant for denizens of Elyria-Swansea…
Drag in Denver is experiencing a resurgence lately, and Dream Girls at Hamburger Mary’s stands out as the kind of show you could take your mother to. Dream Girls cheerfully acknowledges that at least 50 percent of its audiences are straight folks looking to step out of their comfort zones…
As you read this, Jackie O — or at least someone who looks a lot like the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — could be walking down the street somewhere nearby, dressed in a pink Chanel suit and a pillbox hat and tweeting her location and a secret word to Twitter…
Since the city recently took over the Crossroads Theater in Five Points, things have been slow getting off the ground. But the announcement that the Indigenous Film and Arts Festival will be making the Crossroads its home this year is hopeful, as is a new festival side trip, Indie Film…
When was the last time you memorized a poem? Right. Recitation is mostly a lost art of our forebears, but there’s a new movement bring it back, and it’s gaining steam. The national Poetry Out Loud competition, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation as…
It’s funny how times change, and yet they don’t. Belle Epoque-era folks in Colorado’s high-altitude historic haven of Leadville originally conceived of the 1896 version of the Crystal Carnival as a way to attract tourists to the top of the world in the dead of winter. Back then, they built…
PlatteForum’s ArtLab and MCA/Denver’s Teen Council (TeCo) boast similar goals but differing circumstances: Both are located in the Central Platte Valley and cater to creative teens, but each serves dissimilar constituents. While PlatteForum’s kids come from a life of struggle and work with resident artists on hands-on projects, TeCo’s have…
Before Denver’s Su Teatro officially debuts its first production in its new digs at the Denver Civic Theatre later this month, the premier local Latino theater troupe will first sidetrack to South America for a weekend by presenting the Chilean ensemble Teatro en el Blanco in a trio of blockbuster…
Jaime Katz, committee chair for LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails), conceptualized the inaugural Prom Redux last year after she’d heard several stories about how some high-schoolers couldn’t attend their proms because of financial concerns. “I was not one for prom,” Katz admits. “I think I was…
Jason Bosch of the ArgusFest film series likes nothing better than to get people thinking…and talking. So Bosch, who hosts weekly screenings of films covering all manner of human rights and progressive issues at the Mercury Cafe and Hooked on Colfax, went deep this time. He’ll present the controversial film…
For the first time since 1944, the Oscars have more than five Best Picture nominations. But this year’s ten-film ballot has caused a stir, and Keith Garcia — programming manager for the Denver Film Society, the group behind the annual Party With Oscar bash — knows which side of the…
The Olympics may be over, but the games must go on, and tonight, you can hobnob with several heavy-hitting star athletes at the Make-a-Wish Foundation’s Sporting Affair: A Celebrity Waiter Dinner, at the Pepsi Center’s Ridgeline Room, 1000 Chopper Place. “The average wish costs $6,500, and we strive to serve…
Fifteen years ago, after picking up an issue of Might Magazine and laughing my ass off, I set off on the Herculean collector’s endeavor of keeping up with everything Dave Eggers wrote, published or otherwise orchestrated. This year alone, in addition to writing the screenplay and monster fur-covered novelization for…
If you’re bar-hopping in Golden today, be on the lookout for a bunch of flakes drowning pitchers of cold suds. It’s all part of the Snowball Pub Crawl, an ’80s-themed, ski gear costume romp (Madonna in North Face?) to benefit Autism Speaks, a local nonprofit that provides funding for research,…
Reyna Von Vett is known around these parts for her alter ego, Cora Vette, who gets naughty at Bender’s Tavern on Thursday nights with her Black Box Burlesque shows. “But it’s sort of good that I split my personality,” Von Vett notes. “Reyna Von Vett is the one you’re free…
It’s difficult to describe the digital photography of John Bonath; you have to see it and get lost in its marvelous prestidigitations and full-frontal vignettes for yourself. His works, which veer off in intertwining themes (stripes, mud, insects, wood and botanical studies, to name a few of Bonath’s favorites), are…
Max Silverman, protagonist in Vintage Theatre’s production of The Goodbye People, knows he’s going to die. Soon. But before he does, he’s going to resurrect his Coney Island hot dog stand, closed for twenty years. At least that’s his plan. His daughter, Shirley, a fledging television-commercial actress with a new…
Comedians are supposed to deliver punchlines, not become them. But Howie Mandel has withstood plenty of paradox. For the past thirty years, the Canadian funnyman has been renowned as a dramatic actor (in his breakout role on NBC’s St. Elsewhere); an Emmy-nominated creator of the kids’ show Bobby’s World; and…
