Allen True’s West. Allen Tupper True was Denver’s premier muralist during the first third of the twentieth century. Sadly, many of his commissions have been painted over or were lost when the buildings they were in were demolished. In an act of cooperation, the three big cultural institutions on the…
Slight, indifferently shot and entirely lacking in ballast, Harmony and Me’s sole justification for being is that it’s consistently very funny. Harmony (Justin Rice) has a life full of (ha!) discord; obsessing over his ex, Jessica (Kristen Tucker), he floats through a boring tech job, takes piano lessons and generally…
Detective stories imply that mysteries can be solved, or at least rationally explained. Even the most debased example confirms a universe in which guilt is determined and the guilty accorded just deserts. Such are the underpinnings of Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu’s remarkably self-effacing and highly intelligent comedy Police, Adjective —…
Habeas Corpus. Director Richard Pegg, who’s English, completely gets Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus, a nutty sex farce set in Hove in the ’70s. Pegg knows that when it comes to sex, a certain kind of Englishman vacillates perennially between shame and lust. He also understands that Bennett’s ironic melancholia is…
In a culture not much concerned with history, the Cold War that shaped American politics and thinking for so many decades has almost faded from memory, replaced by the misnamed War on Terror. But playwright Rogelio Martinez was born in Cuba, where Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin was a national hero,…
In Pretty Woman, director Garry Marshall’s personal cinematic high score, the opening credits close (and the closing credits open) with the voice of a street freak, barely noticeable in wide shot, chanting an absurd mantra: “Welcome to Hollywood, land of dreams!” Twenty years later, Marshall dips into the same well…
You’re a heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker, don’t you mess around with me! If your Valentine’s Day is shaping up to match Pat Benatar’s painfully cynical lyrics, take heart: Elway’s Downtown, 1881 Curtis Street, in the Ritz-Carlton, is celebrating the virtues of singlehood with an Ice-breaker – Not Heart-breaker happy…
I like roses as much as the next girl, but really, the flowers and the chocolate and the champagne and all that, they’re just subterfuge, meant to get a girl to squeeze into — ta-da! — the teensy lingerie that comes with it. Is it really all about me? Probably…
The Pagosa Springs Nordic Club is billing its WinterFest events as “Olympics in Pagosa,” with 1K, 5K and 10K classic cross-country and skate-ski races, plus a snowshoe race around the Spa Trail Head and surrounding environs. But Pagosa Springs has one event you won’t be seeing in Vancouver: The WinterFest…
Denver Gourmet Tours regularly takes folks on tasty trips around Denver, and today its weekly chocolate tour gives a strong nod to the upcoming heart-shaped holiday. First stop is at Little Man Ice Cream, where you can find out what your favorite flavor says about your compatibility and love personality…
From the standards of what most people consider to be “good” filmmaking, The Room is a complete disaster: bad acting, clumsy dialogue, technical issues out the wazoo. But in this case, you can forget those standards, because this is a film that is infinitely entertaining. You’ve heard of films so…
The carnival is coming to town tonight for Rockstar Aaron’s Carnival Birthday Bash, and it’s going to be one hell of a freak show. It’s a night full of stilt-walkers, burlesque dancers, drag queens, carnival prizes and all the other usual midway attractions. “The rides are going to be on…
Word has it that even the Denver Art Museum’s Christoph Heinrich considered entering the contest to be Pirate honcho Phil Bender’s Valentine’s Day dream date at CORE gallery’s opening for The Love Show. But let’s just call this next part total hearsay: He didn’t do it because the application required…
There will be a couple of changes at this year’s Big Fringe Lottery Party, hosted by the Boulder International Fringe Festival. First, it’s moving to a new venue: Boulder’s blue, a-frame Wesley Chapel, which Pastor Roger Wolsey is renovating to accommodate cultural events. And second, the lottery is morphing into…
Valentine’s Day falls just in the nick of time — ’tis the season when our gonads traditionally get fired up for spring, the season of procreation: You know, the birds, the bees, all that good stuff. But in the age when fast cars creep along the highway, bridled and bound…
Marilyn Megenity’s Mercury Café always rolls out the red carpet for Valentine’s Day, and this year is no exception: Because the holiday of passion falls on a weekend, she’s allowing the love to lazily spill over on both Saturday and Sunday, with a Valentine Visions art show and the annual…
There’s a lot to be said for Lauren Conrad. Like the fact that she practically owns MTV and at least had the sense to dislike Spencer Pratt back in the pre-Speidi years, when poor Heidi Montag had just started dating the douchebag. Conrad’s got a clothing line, has been on…
There are many songs about Billy the Kid – including Bob Dylan’s “Billy,” from the soundtrack of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid – but no songs about Pat Garrett, the sheriff in Lincoln County, New Mexico, who killed the charming rogue born William Bonney. “He has become the bad…
Thirteen of Denver’s most popular restaurants will take part in the Great Chefs of the West tonight, an annual fundraiser for the National Kidney Foundation. But this year’s style will be a little different. “ is our signature event, and we wanted a fresh, new image, so we moved away…
Can’t get to the Big Easy for Mardi Gras? You can still find plenty of beads, music and debauchery in Denver if you head to the Wynkoop Brewing Company, which has been hosting a Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras Celebration for the past fifteen years, helping revelers cut loose and really…
Two high-profile politicos from opposite sides of the partisan arena will lock horns tonight when the University of Colorado at Boulder’s student-run Distinguished Speakers Board presents the touring Howard Dean and Karl Rove Debate in Macky Auditorium. And no matter how rote the agenda might be, it’s a match-up that’s…
No small endeavor, the fully rounded annual Denver Jewish Film Festival will celebrate its fourteenth year at the Mizel Arts and Culture Center when the curtain rises on tonight’s opening screening, the kickoff for ten days of programming that includes numerous local and regional premieres, parties, workshops and guest appearances…
