A Legendary Outing

Despite Link’s green tunic and Peter Pan hat, he remains Nintendo’s most respected badass. In the long-awaited Twilight Princess for the Wii, the elf hero begins yet another quest to save the world with his trademark bombs and boomerangs. Minor déjà vu aside, Twilight Princess becomes nothing short of an…

Go Natural

Boulder is the quintessential healthy-living city in a healthy-living state. But how, exactly, did it get that way? And why are so many natural-food companies based in Boulder? The answers lie in the past. The museum’s current exhibit, Tea to Tofu: Boulder’s Natural Food Phenomenon, includes lectures by a variety…

To the IMAX

I was thirteen the first time I saw the IMAX screen. I walked into the theater, ready to watch Africa: The Serengeti with my classmates and immediately felt overwhelmed by the vast ocean of white. I tried to picture how many regular movie screens could fit into this monstrosity and…

Grin and Bear It

That Norwegian Trygve Bauge left some strange — and cold — things behind when he departed for Norway. His grandfather, Bredo Morstoel, is cryogenically frozen and stored in a Tuff Shed in Nederland, which inspired the town’s Frozen Dead Guy Days festival. Bauge also founded the Polar Bear Plunge, a…

Calling All Automatons

It’s true what they’re saying about tonight’s Robot Dance Party III at Buntport Theater — a fifteen-foot-tall robot with moving arms and laser-shooting eyes will come to life at midnight, and, yes, the remote-controlled Robosapien will be there to entice party-goers into periodic dance-offs. But it won’t be all glamdroids…

Erotic and Exotic

It’s hard to find words to describe the blowout at the Mercury Cafe tonight. It’ll be a culinary delight, what with the all-night dining available from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. — and the background music will be live, provided by Local Color, David Nereson, Ron Tomasic, Molly Zackary and Joe…

The Sweetest Thing

Willy Wonka must’ve had a brother. That’s the only explanation for Ned Archibald, executive pastry chef for Keystone Resorts, and his Chocolate Village. In its eleventh year of yumminess, the village consists of 2,500 pounds of chocolate formed into a miniature alpine community. Archibald reuses the same Village pieces year…

Skate Fever

“How can it get any better?” asks Mark Ray, manager of the Ice Rink at One Boulder Plaza, located at 1801 13th Street. “Downtown Boulder? Ice skating? Come on.” After running the skate shop for years, Ray’s still a sucker for the outdoor rink a block off the Pearl Street…

Getting tRUNked

“What now?” is the question plaguing many parents whose tweens have graduated from kiddie theater but aren’t quite ready for long, “boring” grownup productions. Thankfully, Buntport Theater has the answer: tRUNks. Featuring a cast of young actors and writers who still remember that age when they were too cool for…

Red Planet

“Synergy” is one of those corporate words used to express the idea that two heads (or companies, or subsidiaries) are better than one. The people at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Boulevard, believe education works that way, too: The new exhibit, Engineer It!, and IMAX feature,…

Star Gazers

I come by my geek cred honestly. As a kid, the planetarium was my favorite place. I dreamed of being an astronaut. My mom and I would watch Star Trek every afternoon at 5 p.m. while shelling peas or snapping beans or some such chore. I read out the Fruita…

Candy

Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish play unbelievably gorgeous heroin junkies in Candy, a don’t-try-this-at-home melodrama adapted from Australian author Luke Davies’s aptly billed “novel of love and addiction.” Essentially the film is Requiem for a Dream with a lot less of that overrated indie’s shooting-gallery pizzazz, although director Neil Armfield…

Volver

Men are literally disposable in Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver. But the film, particularly for fans of the gynophilic, flamboyantly color-coordinating maker of loco melodramas, is essential. The title translates as Coming Back — as in “back from the dead,” referring to the matter-of-fact resurrection of Irene (Carmen Maura), an old grandmother…

The Painted Veil

Given what an awful stiff Somerset Maugham can be, it’s remarkable how many movies have been made of his uptight tales of civil servants sweating it out in British colonies (48 for the big screen alone). John Curran’s fresh take on Maugham’s The Painted Veil, from a crisp script by…

Now Playing

The Big Bang. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to think too much, to just settle back and watch a couple of frenetically energetic guys working really hard to earn your good will — and your entertainment dollars. Oh, and to make you laugh. The Big Bang posits the following…

Radar: Selections From the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan

Considering its outlandish appearance, the new Frederic C. Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum has overshadowed what’s on display inside. There are some exceptions, however, and first among them is RADAR: Selections From the Collection of Vicki & Kent Logan, which is installed in the Anschutz Gallery on level…

I am a man

I am a man, the current offering at Ironton Studios and Gallery (3636 Chestnut Street, 303-297-8626), purports to be about men’s art. For the past thirty years or so, shows about women’s art have become pretty common, while shows about men’s art have not. This exhibit doesn’t really change that…

Sketches

Colorado Classic Architects, et al. Many of the finest buildings in town were done by firms with offices right here in the Mile High City, and they’re the subject of Colorado Classic Architects, a handsome and informative exhibit in the Western Art Gallery on the fifth floor of the Denver…

Juices Flowing

Jackass Number Two: Unrated (Paramount) The sequel to the dumb-ass jamboree makes its predecessor look plain and inoffensive. In short: more puke, more blood, more semen (from a horse, consumed nonetheless), more shit, more piss, more everything till you’d think the Jackasses (Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, etc.) would be…

Resistance Isn’t Futile

Imagine two game producers rushing down the hall. One wants to pitch a WW2 game, the other a sci-fi shooter. They round a corner, crash into each other, and their papers go flying everywhere — and in one of those great “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!” moments, Resistance:…

Our top DVD picks for the week of December 26:

Airwolf: Season Two (Universal) Be With Me (Film Movement) Dane Cook’s Tourgasm (HBO) Danica (First Look) Factotum (IFC) The Family Values Tour 2006 (Firm Music) Girls Behaving Badly, Volume One (Starlight) Haven (Fox) Mars Invades the Earth! (Alpha) Mi Amigo (Velocity) Mr. Fix It (First Look) The New Adventures of…

Forget Me Not

Ashara Ekundayo believes that people in Denver suffer not from a lack of culture, but a lack of memory. “Amnesia is so prevalent in Denver,” says the co-host of AfroBlu, Denver’s newest after-hours dance party. “If you’re doing something good in this city, you have to keep it right in…