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Bold Girls. The four Irish women in Rona Munro’s evocative, elliptical Bold Girls try to carry on in the equivalent of a war zone, doing their best to shelter and care for their children, filling their lives with humdrum chores and small diversions. All four characters are strongly delineated and…

Manuel Neri and Kim Dickey:Cold Pastoral

The Denver Art Museum’s still-new Frederic C. Hamilton Building has impacted the city — and the museum itself — in a wide range of ways, some good, some not so good. On the plus side is the unbelievable publicity the building has generated. The Daniel Libeskind-designed wing is estimated to…

Scapes and Sky – Sea

The current Barbara Carpenter solo in the east room at Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200) is called Scapes, and considering the artist’s established track record, it’s something of a surprise. For nearly twenty years, Carpenter has been known for her abstract color photos, but for Scapes, she did…

Sketches

Altar Girls. Two very different exhibits roughly collide into one another in the middle of the Museo de las Américas. One part, put together by Museo curator Kristi Martens, is an extravaganza of santos made mostly in Colorado, Mexico and New Mexico, and primarily culled from a recent gift to…

Cannibal Corpse

Hannibal Rising (Weinstein) Pointless beyond belief, Hannibal Rising serves more as cautionary tale than horror story. Made for $50 mil, the movie pocketed half that during its U.S. run and likely wound up in the red — an appropriate adios for a franchise starring a peripheral character better served by…

Student Bodies

Dating games have come a long way since the days when Chuck Woolery invited mullet-sporting contestants to bump uglies on Love Connection. In Japan, the “dating simulator” video-game craze has raged stronger than a schoolboy’s hormones since the early ’90s. But here in America — where our gaming interests lean…

Our top DVD picks for the week of May 29.

Above the Law (Genius) The Andy Griffith Show: Complete Series Collection (Paramount) Big Train: Seasons One and Two (BBC Warner) Biography: Legends of the Silver Screen (A&E) Circle of Iron: 2-Disc Special Edition (Blue Underground) The Closer: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros.) Drive Thru (Lionsgate) The Foursome (Universal) Free…

How Romantic

There may be more than one way to learn a language, but for Kelsey Horine and the rest of the Alliance Française de Denver crew, there’s only one way to truly experience a culture: immersion. The proof is in the pairings at today’s French and Italian Wine and Cheese Tasting,…

Talking Shop

Local aficionados of the corner used-furniture store might fondly remember the Cluttered Closet in Congress Park, which sadly shut its doors last fall. It was one of those places where you’d find a new/old sofa by serendipity as you walked through your neighborhood; the treasures were always plentiful and the…

House of Fun

Growing up in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was anything but. Bechdel’s graphic novel illustrates her life in a small town with her emotionally distant parents: mother a frustrated community-theater actress and father a high-school English teacher, funeral director and historical archivist. He was also a closeted gay man who conducted…

Heavy Exercise

“It’s a gruesome ride,” my dad recalls of the Compass Bank Elephant Rock Cycling Festival, which begins and ends at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock. “I think the first time I went for the hundred-mile, I had bad luck with a new set of gears,” the former cycling…

More Music

The 21st City Park Jazz season will go on as planned this year despite the major construction that makes the bandstand by Ferril Lake, where the free outdoor concerts have always traditionally been staged, look like an iffy place to spread a picnic blanket. Instead, the first three concerts, beginning…

Fringe Festival

Although his Tennyson Street gallery space is tiny, artist and artists’ friend Jimmy Sellars tends to do things big. So what the heck, he decided, why not take the art outside and put it on the wall? Because there seemed to be so many artists and so little room, the…

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

Don’t laugh. Right now I’m wearing a rubber mouse nose that’s been lying around my room forever. Today it just feels…appropriate. As a means of communing with my inner Furry, this plastic appendage seems like a step in the right direction. Maybe you’re more juiced-in than I, but you’re probably…

Silents Are Golden

Buster Keaton’s face is practically immobile during many of his best performances, in stark contrast to the rest of his body. As one of the most athletic stars in cinema history, he performed on-screen feats at which even the young Jackie Chan might have balked, all while wearing an expression…

Boys ‘R’ Us

For a flick that revolves around a male prostitute, Boy Culture features little in the way of explicit sex. Instead, it focuses upon elements that seldom turn up at multiplexes during the summer movie season: compelling characters who have interesting things to say. The tale revolves around X (Derek Magyar),…

Everyday People

Now in its 36th year, the People’s Fair is the oldest festival in the city. With 120 bands on six stages, 300 artists exhibiting their own painting, sculpture, photography, jewelry and crafts, the return of the wine pavilion, and a bigger, better kids’ area, this year’s version will continue to…

Made to Order

“We were getting so many requests,” explains the Fabric Lab’s Tran Wills. “For different sizes, or ‘Can you put this design on a men’s collared shirt instead of a T-shirt?’ or ‘Can they print this design on a suit jacket?'” Not to mention the jewelry: “A lot of designers were…

Funky Beats

If music is like a body, then percussion is the skeleton — the framework that holds everything together and gives it shape. Your musical osteologist would recommend attending drumming clinics to keep those bones strong. So do something good for your rhythm and sign up for the Black Lamp drummers’…

Con Tiki

The entire River North arts district will be hosting First Friday special events and open houses during tonight’s Evening in RiNo event. But the jewel in that crown will surely be the opening reception for Retroville — a pure-fun group kitsch show — taking place from 6 to 9 p.m…

Land of Lincolns

Lincoln Logs master mason Michael Ensminger has done it again: The local artist has created a monumental installation of Lincoln Logs with help from a small flock of girls from the Colfax Community Network. Tower of Babel, the product of Ensminger’s six-week residency at PlatteForum, far exceeds anything the toy…

Art Blocks

Another summer (woo-hoo!), and again, the East End Arts District is kicking up its heels with its annual Summer Art Walk. The sixteen-block area along East Colfax — between Clinton and Geneva streets — is the place to be today and tomorrow as this budding-art-district-that-could proves that Aurora is more…