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…
During the last decade or so, there has been increased interest in exploring the rich art history of Colorado, and Hugh Grant, director of Denver’s Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art, has been at the forefront of this movement, having acquired thousands of works by hundreds of artists who…
Something to Consider is a wonderful summer show filled with fresh-looking contemporary paintings and ceramic sculptures at Sandy Carson Gallery (760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-8585). I’m not sure the title means anything, but I am sure that the show is a knockout. Is it just me, or is Denver abstract…
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. The story begins back in 1966 in Boulder — specifically, in the fine-arts department at the University of Colorado. The title of…
Edison Force (Sony) Gritty cop stuff must write itself — just make sure everyone’s tough, corrupt, and talking like they stole Mickey Spillane’s thesaurus. Then cast Justin Timberlake. Screech! Employing the talented (at music) popster as a crusading journalist isn’t this lame flick’s worst flaw — merely the one you’ll…
The history of football videogames is one of adding layer upon layer of complexity. Tecmo Bowl, the first great football game, had just four plays to choose from. Fast-forward to the latest Madden, and it’s more like 400. The logical result of this evolution is Electronic Arts’ NFL Head Coach,…
The Best of She-Ra Princess of Power (Brentwood) Carnivale: The Complete Second Season (HBO) The Cavern (Sony) Clean (Palm) Don’t Move (Wellspring) An Early Frost (Wolfe) Flash Gordon: The Complete Series (Brentwood) The Incredible Hulk: The Complete First Season (Universal) Intimate Stories (New Yorker) Jack of All Trades: The Complete…
You might think it’s impossible for these sultry summer nights to get any hotter. But you’d be wrong, because this evening’s Hot Summer Nights Bachelor Auction will crank up the temperature several notches. Each of the fifteen participating eligible gentlemen will be auctioned off with a pre-planned date, ranging from…
Slipped into the summer movie season like acid into your happy meal, Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is a blockbuster of counter-programming. No matter that the dude from The Matrix is its star — or would be, if he weren’t half hidden under a thick swath of digital paint. Linklater’s…
Owen Wilson has moved up in the world: He’s gone from crashing weddings to crashing entire marriages. In the listless farce You, Me and Dupree, his eponymous ne’er-do-well, having lost his job and been evicted from his apartment after taking time off to be the best man at the Hawaiian…
Perhaps no one can pinpoint the exact moment vaudeville died, but there’s a moment early in Strangers With Candy where you’d swear you had just witnessed the death of visual comedy. En route to her first day of high school, a tarty middle-aged jailbird — this is not a Disney…
Boulder came of age in the 1960s, right along with the first baby boomers. The beautiful little town became a national center for the counterculture and the New Left, creating social and political currents that flowed into the 1970s. The visual arts got caught up in the times, too, thanks…
Weilworks (3611 Chestnut Place, 303-308-9345) is an elegant little contemporary gallery in the River North area, not far from downtown. It’s in a smart-looking building that’s something like a post-modern farmhouse. For the current offerings, which opened late in June, owner Tracy Weil wanted to come up with something that…
Balanced Dissolution. Chuck Parson, one of the region’s top sculptors, is an artist whose work you’d expect to see in a fall slot, but his solo, Balanced Dissolution, is on right now at Artyard. Parson does non-objective metal sculptures with deep roots in conceptual art and constructivism. He’s chiefly interested…
Actress Lucy Roucis, who’s playing the witch Addaperle in The Wiz, her thirteenth production with the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors’ League (PHAMALy), has a standup routine about the pros and cons of her Parkinson’s disease, which she recites softly during a break in rehearsal: Pro: Killer parking spaces. Con:…
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…
From Pokémon to Dragon Ball Z, Japanese pop culture has captured the imagination of American kids. The latest import craze is Naruto. Anyone hip to Harry Potter will find the story familiar: A bunch of otherwise ordinary kids, including titular hero Naruto Uzumaki, study ninjitsu (rather than wizardry) in a…
Grand Prix (Warner Bros.) John Frankenheimer, as underrated as he was brilliant, made a racing picture in 1966 that’s yet to be topped forty years later. James Garner suffered through the director’s churlish demands (which Frankenheimer reveals and owns up to, in archival footage on one of the documentaries here)…
Basic Instinct 2 (Sony) Bill Maher: New Rules (HBO) Bridezillas: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons (Weinstein) Care Bears: Hearts at Sea (Family Home Ent.) Dennis Miller: All In (HBO) Dolla Morte (Grimoire) The Dudesons Movie (Rhino) The Ellen Show: The Complete Series (Sony) ER: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner…
“You’ve paid your debt/Get up, you wreck/ And crawl out through the door/Love will return.” Elegant, gay, acerbic, pensive and hilarious, Ray Davies has always been an unlikely yet perfect rock star, a relic from the days when kids like me listened to Davies and the Kinks blast the inanely…
Denver comics Anthony “AD” Demmer and Akwame D say comedy is one of the oldest art forms in black history. For hundreds of years, laughter’s been a tool for healing and commenting on society. Just like the legendary Richard Pryor, the best comics are those willing to tell the truth…
Today at 11 a.m., anywhere from fifty to a hundred local toddlers, tweens and teens will gather at Aurora’s Fletcher Plaza, 9898 East Colfax Avenue, to compete in Colorado’s cutest sober-karaoke contest. They will wear special costumes and Sunday dresses, sunglasses and colored hats, spit-shined sneakers and brand-new shirts, and…
