The Plains Truth

Plainsong, Colorado author Kent Haruf’s lyrical, spare novel, was considered too racy for the One Book, One Denver program. But it should work just fine at the Stage Theatre, where the world premiere of the adaptation based on the novel debuts tonight in previews. Last year, the Denver Center Theatre…

Superbad

Every superhero has a secret identity — even the ones who spend their days hustling tips as the self-proclaimed “ambassadors to Hollywood Boulevard.” Confessions of a Superhero, opening tonight at Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli and running through November 29, is an X-ray view of the lives of four performers…

Animal Instinct

My favorite piece of art that I own (although I truthfully couldn’t afford it) is Dede LaRue’s “Hell Cat,” a ferocious, smiling cat outta hell whose golden tabby half torso leaps gleefully, taxidermy eyes all aglow, as if he’s crashing through the wall to perform some willful destruction in my…

Stylin’ Stuff

Art Deco was a product of the opulent Jazz Age, a time when technological advances, relative financial stability and modern thinking encouraged the integration of imagery borrowed from both primitive and futuristic fine-art influences, man-made materials and an elegant, streamlined symmetry into a variety of forms. Architecture, fashion, furniture, graphic…

Film Festival Profile: Last Hat In Town

Last Hat in Town Director: Zachary Fink Remaining showtime: 12:30 p.m., Sunday, November 18 Told through the stories of three men with three unique and intimiate ties to the rugged business of oil and gas extraction in the Rocky Mountain West, director Zachary Fink’s documentary Last Hat in Town uses…

Northern Exposure Reruns A Cure For Writers Strike Blues

Great shows never die; they just move to cable. And, sometimes, to PBS. KBDI Channel 12 is into its second run of the full Northern Exposure series, which originally ran from 1990 to 1995 on CBS. After spending some time on cable’s A&E channel, in the “Daybreak” spot (where it…

Film Festival Profile: Skills Like This

The world’s worst writer has had enough. Tormented by the knowledge that he will never make it as a playwright, he abandons his primary passion for a more lucrative trade at which he finds he has a natural talent: Robbing banks. And this spur-of-the-moment act of desperation changes his life…

Film Festival Profile: Mountain Town

Mountain Town Director: Brendan Kiernan and Frank Pickell Cinematographer: Jasper Gray Show times: Monday, November 12, 6:15 p.m.; Wednesday, November 14, 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, November 18, 5:30 p.m. Pick path, pursue it to the exclusion of everything else, and the universe will conspire with you to make things happen. Even…

O Brother, Where for Art Coen?

A recent posting on the Starz Denver Film Festival website announced that a “mystery screening” has been added to the roster to play at the Esquire Theatre at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, November 13. What might be concealed inside this feature-length grab bag? Well, the blurb says the language is…

Denver Film Festival Dailies: End of the Line

OK, there are some weird signs that things in the world aren’t right. And a group of religious fanatics pointing to those signs. And a subway train. Plus, of course, a small group of “normal” people just trying to get home. Add these together, add some cheap blood and gore,…

Denver Film Festival Dailies: Oswald’s Ghost

The JFK assassination is probably the best-covered event in pre-9/11 American history and the documentary Oswald’s Ghost is director Robert Stone’s another take on it. As documentaries go, it’s fairly entertaining, but it lacks a strong message or narrative thrust. It builds a case that Oswald could have done it…

Punk Rock Flea Market

Whatever your punk poison, this Saturday’s Punk Rock Flea Market promises to have something for you. The monthly event features music on vinyl and CD, as well as tables set up by local bands, clothing shops, designers and artists. Presented by Suburban Home Records’ Vinyl Collective, the market is a…

The Revolution Will Be Televised Part Two: The Future Is Now

No one can know what exactly will come from this current strike—but its potential to completely alter the landscape of television, should it drag on long enough, can’t be ignored. It’s one thing to complain about the talk-show reruns, or tire of the newsmagazines and reality shows that are produced…

The Revolution Will Be Televised Part One: Coming Soon

Earlier this week, I started talking about a television revolution. It was going to come anyway, but the Writers’ Strike of 2007 is pushing the schedule forward a bit, or has the potential to do so, anyway. But even if the long-term ramifications of the strike are potentially dramatic, what…

Southland Tales

A doom-ridden pulp cabalist with a dark sense of purpose as well as humor, Richard Kelly shoots the moon with his rich, strange and very funny sci-fi social satire, Southland Tales. Kelly’s debut, Donnie Darko, was the first post-millennial cult hit; his second feature, Southland Tales, achieved film maudit status…

Lions for Lambs

Less a war drama than a set of dueling position papers, Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs may be the gabbiest movie ever made about American foreign policy — and it wasn’t even written by Aaron Sorkin. Hot young screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan is fresh off his alpha-male script for The…

Fred Claus

Banking on the career choices of Vince Vaughn garners increasingly erratic returns, which is ironic, given that he has finally settled on (or surrendered to) a consistent on-screen persona: his own bad self. Uneasy from the beginning, Vaughn avoided the superstardom that seemed within reach after Swingers by trying on…

A Little Sucky-Sucky

Castlevania, the vampire-hunting series that stretches over twenty years and as many games, has basically two kinds of fans. There are the traditionalists, who’ve followed the games since they were straight-up action titles with thumb-busting combat and infamously steep difficulty curves. Most agree that the best of the old-school Castlevanias…

The Kids Were Alright

Sesame Street: Old School Volume 2(Genius)On the heels of the Electric Company boxed sets, which were at once educational and groovy as all get-out, comes the latest in greatest hits from Sesame Street before the neighborhood was gentrified for Elmo’s protection. Chief among the copious highlights in this triple-disc acid…

Up and Coming

The Best of the Colbert Report (Paramount) Blame It on Fidel! (Koch Lorber) Blood Car (TLA) The Crown Prince (Koch) Deck the Halls (Fox) Election (Tartan) Flight of the Conchords: The Complete First Season (HBO) Help!: Deluxe Edition (Capitol) I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Universal) James Bond Ultimate…

For Better

Karen has just gotten engaged to Max. She’s met him face-to-face only once, but they’ve conducted a three-month relationship via cell-phone conversations, text and Instant Messaging. Everyone in Karen’s small circle — sister Francine, brother-in-law Michael, old friend Stuart (who’s secretly in love with her) and Francine’s best friend, Lizzie…

Now Playing

Macbeth. Setting Macbeth in the old West should work. From what we know, eleventh-century Scotland was a violent and lawless place, a place where the dirty, drunken louts and desperate whores of our own frontier days would fit right in. Unfortunately, director Geoffrey Kent’s vision is far too literal and…