As a boy growing up in Denver in the 1950s, Purnell Steen would head down to Five Points to hear jazz from such international icons as Ella Fitzgerald and Cootie Williams at the Lounge in the Rossonian Hotel. It was bluesy gospel jazz, the kind of “swing” style that anybody…
“There are so many things that need to be done in Africa,” says Natalie McIntyre, a volunteer for the non-profit organization Food for the Hungry. “I know that they need food, but I think it’s really important to empower people. “Fourteen million people in Uganda don’t have access to health…
“This is a selfish thing to do,” concedes Chris Cardone, the organizer behind this weekend’s Lodo Bass Bash. “I’m only doing it because I wanted to see all my favorite artists in one place.” Most of Cardone’s heroes play extended-range basses that hit notes standard instruments can’t replicate. At the…
“Having a lawn isn’t the best way to garden in Colorado,” says David Winger, conservation specialist and Xeriscape expert with Denver Water. He’s not kidding: For the six years I lived in the Midwest, I didn’t have to water my lawn once, and the grass still grew like crazy. But…
This political season has been pushing buttons with everyone, which is reason enough for tonight’s Oh, It’s Just the Fate of the Republic Talk and Cocktail Reception. At 6:30 p.m., John Nichols, the insightful, erudite Washington correspondent for The Nation, will hit below the Beltway as he discusses the current…
There is no modern-day antecedent to the movies Will Ferrell makes with writer-director Adam McKay, with whom Ferrell collaborated during their tenure at Saturday Night Live only a few years ago. To compare their offerings (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and the new Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky…
If nothing else, give the makers of Beowulf & Grendel high marks for boldness and a certain playful irreverence. It’s a good bet that today’s movie-goers have all the respect in the world for eighth-century poetry, Norse legend and the tenets of early Christianity, but the real attraction of the…
Like the shambling VW van its hapless characters steer from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, Little Miss Sunshine is a rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill. How this antic extended sitcom from first-time feature-makers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris left Sundance with an eight-figure deal and reams of enthralled press clippings…
Monster’s Ball producer Lee Daniels makes his directorial debut with Shadowboxer, and it couldn’t be clearer that he’s trying to follow his previous formula for success. Oscar-caliber actors? Check. Interracial sex? Plenty. A violent demise or two, all in the service of character development? Oh yes. But Daniels maybe could…
The old Lucas/Spielberg stunt of turning B-movie peekaboos into E-ticket thrill rides remains the industry standard — to the virtual exclusion of other multiplex fare, particularly when school’s out. But as not every kid who remade Raiders in Super 8 either gave up the dream or morphed into Michael Bay,…
It’s not for nothing that 1959’s Plan 9 From Outer Space is often hailed as “the worst movie ever made.” Directed — if that’s the right word — by the famously delusional shlockmeister Ed Wood, it’s a hilarious bit of nonsense about space aliens who think they can conquer Earth…
For the third time in two years, there’s a major show addressing how traditional Chicano art has progressed into post-Chicano art. The latest is Chain Reaction: Chicano/a and Latino/a Art in Colorado, at the Vida Ellison Gallery on the seventh floor of the Denver Central Library. The dialogue began locally…
There are two interesting shows installed back-to-back at Pirate: a contemporary art oasis (3655 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058). In the handsome members’ space that underwent a thorough remodel last year is Jason Appleton; in the still-as-funky-as-ever associates’ space is Strange attachments. Appleton, a longtime member of the venerable co-op, has gotten…
The Armory Group. In a summer art calendar that’s uncharacteristically filled with significant exhibitions, /i>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…
Something is happening at the University of Delaware’s theater program, from which the Colorado Shakespeare Festival has drawn a fair amount of its acting talent in the past few years. I imagine an elderly English actress running the place, dispensing advice on diction and elocution over china teacups. From the…
The Ballad of Baby Doe. Central City Opera is celebrating the fiftieth birthday of Douglas Moore’s famed piece with a lively, glowing production full of beautifully proportioned sets that look like Victorian Christmas cards, a talented, energetic ensemble and a cluster of glorious voices. The opera conjures up all the…
Native American heroes are a rare commodity in video games. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, released a decade ago, is the most prominent example. Now Turok finally has company. The best way to describe Prey is “Doom meets Cherokee mysticism.” And while most critics are fawning over this first-person action/horror title, don’t…
V for Vendetta (Warner Bros.) Illustrator David Lloyd calls this adaptation of the comic he made with writer Alan Moore “very good” — so why did Moore beg to have his name removed? The intentions are noble, sure; name another big-studio blockbuster in which a government manufactures fear to keep…
Beavis & Butt-head: The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 3 (Paramount) Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf (Panik House) Broken Saints: The Animated Comic Epic (Fox) Dallas: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner Bros.) Elvis: ’68 Comeback (BMG Heritage) A Fish Called Wanda: Deluxe Edition (MGM) Girls Next Door (Fox) The Graduate (MGM)…
If you ask me, the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, which made its debut at Sloan’s Lake in 2001, is just about the best thing that ever happened to summer in Denver, brimming over with just the right amount of everything you’d possibly want from a fest: First and foremost, it’s…
Buntport Theater was formed by a group of hyper-creative Colorado College kids who shared an affinity for quirk: The theater’s production history includes Kafka on Ice, a freewheelin’ biodrama about the existential, roach-centric German writer, set in an ice rink; and Donner, a documentary-style tragicomedy about Santa’s reindeer. This kind…
When I watched Ferris Bueller’s idyllic ditch day for the first time — as a teen growing up in the same Chicago suburbia immortalized by John Hughes — I related more to the straitlaced best friend Cameron, who was destined to get busted for taking his dad’s fabulous car downtown…
