For most people, the words “role-playing game” conjure images of sweaty Dungeons & Dragons-obsessed weirdos, wearing cloaks and screaming “Lightning bolt!” at each other. But even non-RPG players gave the genre a try when Final Fantasy VII debuted back in 1997. The beautiful graphics and heart-tugging story made it an…
Veronica Mars: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros.) Any concept along the lines of “high school hottie solves crimes” is bound to make for watchable TV, but who would have expected this? Equal parts 90210 teen soap, murder mystery, and comedy, Veronica Mars pulls you in with its sharp writing,…
The Apartment (Lions Gate) The Bill Cosby Show: Season One (Shout! Factory) The Blue Light (Pathfinder) Conviction: The Complete Series (Universal) Dances With Wolves: Extended Cut (MGM) Film Geek (First Run) House, M.D.: Season Two (Universal) Invasion: The Complete Series (Warner Bros.) Just My Luck (Fox) The Maid (Tartan) On…
Dozens of adult film stars will show off their very fine body of work at the third annual Adult Filmstar Ball, which runs from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. tonight at La Bohème Gentleman’s Cabaret, 1443 Stout Street, and is second in size only to the AVN Awards (the Oscars…
Is it any surprise that City Auditor Dennis Gallagher, who holds office hours at Common Grounds and has a brew named after him there, would single out coffeehouses as the key to civic engagement? He sees their rising numbers as a demonstration of the human connection and how people choose…
As it turns out, the rectilinear lines, corrugated frontages, mammoth spaces and ship’s-prow semblance of the new Colorado Convention Center aren’t the most digestible architectural appetizers. After just one year in the shiny new digs, Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation — Denver’s annual glutton-fest charity event — hiked…
Need an excuse to party? Here’s one: The Colorado Humane Society is celebrating its 125th birthday today. Get gussied up in your finest evening attire and head over to the Adam’s Mark Hotel, 1550 Court Place, where you can celebrate with dinner, entertainment, a silent auction and much more. The…
Cocktails — like food, fashion, film and everything else that’s good in life — have life spans, eras, and some are better than others. One need look no further than a LoDo happy-hour menu to see that we’re well past the golden age of glamour when it comes to inebriants…
I’ve been a fan of Deb Henriksen since I caught one of her first fashion shows two summers ago. Her styles were innovative but still wearable, her sensibilities completely down with the skater chick who can hang on the half-pipe and still look good at the after-party. Project Runway only…
Spending a night out with the girls is always problematic: Even if you can manage to shed the boy friends, boyfriends and husbands for a night, there’s always some creepy guy at the bar who wants to paw at you and ask for your phone number. And you can forget…
I’ve always wanted to enjoy traditional golf, but at the tender age of six, I accidentally nailed my younger brother in the head with a driver. He had failed to inform me that he was walking behind me while I practiced. We both cried, he got stitches, and my lucrative…
A winning tale of sex, real estate and more or less immaculate conception, Quinceaera, as you might expect from a white-made drama about Latino life in Echo Park, threatens to be all about a pregnant teenager and a prodigal cholo in the hood. Yet this saucy, rowdy, heartfelt and terribly…
Jason Lethcoe’s book Amazing Adventures From Zoom’s Academy doesn’t particularly wow the reader with its prose, but the concept is solid — basically, Harry Potter with superheroes rather than wizards. The heroine, Summer Jones, is an awkward thirteen-year-old tomboy with a goofy father named Jasper who likes to tinker with…
No baseball fan who knows a sinker from a slider believes the grand old game should ever be played indoors — curses on your garbage-bag outfield “wall,” Minnesota Twins; good riddance, Houston Astrodome — and it sometimes rankles the purest of the pure that they must watch even a televised…
In January 2007, Dianne Perry Vanderlip, the founding curator of the Modern and Contemporary Art department at the Denver Art Museum, will retire, giving up the job she’s held since 1978. Vanderlip has been the most important and influential person in the Denver art world — something that will not…
Michael Burnett’s Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088) is one of the highlights of the Santa Fe Arts District. It’s especially nice that it’s right across the street from the area’s flagship, the Sandy Carson Gallery — though if you’re tempted to jaywalk to get from one to the…
The Armory Group. In a summer art calendar that’s uncharacteristically filled with significant exhibitions, The Armory Group: 40 Years has got to be one of the most important of them all. The story begins back in 1966 in Boulder — specifically, in the fine-arts department at the University of Colorado…
There are certain actors whose name on a cast list gladdens my heart. The presence of any one of them on stage pretty much assures that I’ll have a good evening at the theater, almost regardless of script, direction or supporting cast. These actors are hugely different in terms of…
Impulse Theater. Basements and comedy go together like beer and nuts or toddlers and sandboxes. The basement of the Wynkoop Brewing Co., where Impulse Theater performs, is crowded, loud and energetic. Impulse does no prepared skits, nothing but pure improv — which means that what you see changes every night,…
Like a real war, Chromehounds involves long stretches of tedium, occasionally broken up by a few moments of sheer terror. After what feels like weeks of ponderous marching from point A to point B in your titular “Hound” (a walking tank), combat erupts. The fighting is fast and ferocious and…
Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier (Paramount) It’s all here, more or less: the 1979 theatrical cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s harrowing and still-hypnotic Joseph Conrad-in-Vietnam adaptation, the 49-minutes-longer-but-feels-24-minutes-shorter 2001 Redux edition, Marlon Brando’s entire 17-minute “The Hollow Men” monologue, even more “lost” and deleted scenes (including a spooky-shocking one, in…
Benito (Lions Gate) Cape of Good Hope (New Yorker) Clark Gable Collection, Volume 1 (Fox) Don’t Tell (Lions Gate) The Hard Corps (Sony) Hong Kong Phooey: The Complete Series (Turner) Hoot (New Line) James Stewart: The Signature Collection (Warner Bros.) Land of the Blind (Bauer) Lemming (Strand) L’Enfant (Sony) Machined…
