Ford Tough

The John Wayne/John Ford Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Featuring the most epic pairing of director and actor in Hollywood history, this 10-disc box spews machismo all over. Wayne and Ford defined not only the western and war-movie genres, but also our culture’s image of rugged manhood. Among the highlights is…

Westword’s top DVD picks for the week of June 8, 2006.

Black Hawk Down: Extended Cut (Sony) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: The Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Fox) Charmed: The Complete Fifth Season (Paramount) Dumbo: Big Top Edition (Disney) Entourage: The Complete Second Season (HBO) The Fast and the Furious: Franchise Collection (Universal) Firewall (Warner Bros.) Garfield: The Movie — The…

Dancing Planet

“It doesn’t matter how many left feet you have. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had many years of dance experience or zero. The program is set up so that total neophytes can come in and have a fun evening.” So says Tom Masterson, coordinator of Dances From Around the World,…

City Sounds

Back in 1986, City Park wasn’t the recreation destination it is these days. “The park was facing hard times,” says City Park Jazz boardmember Susan Klann. “There’d been an uptick in criminal activity nearby, and people weren’t going there as much.” To reverse this trend, Klann notes, a group of…

The Back Way

The two-bit towns of Colorado’s eastern plains — Arriba, Hugo, Limon, Flagler, Burlington, Cheyenne Wells and all the other dusty, agricultural burgs that time forgot on the way to Kansas — don’t seem to have much to offer, on the surface. Citified folk whiz past on the interstate, never bothering…

Ah, There’s the Rub

Some historians have grave reservations about the stories that rapscallions wanted to steal the body of Buffalo Bill Cody. But then, there’s that mysterious photo of a tank guarding Buffalo Bill’s burial plot on Lookout Mountain back in the ’20s. And in the 1940s, when a major American Legion convention…

Pass the Mic, Dyke

Q: What does a lesbian bring on the second date? A: A U-Haul. If you haven’t heard the world’s oldest lesbian joke, then you’re probably not a lesbian. But you don’t have be a lavender lover to lay down the levity at the Dyke Mic, which starts tonight and every…

Grow Forth

The heat is on, gardeners, so it’s time to pull on your muddy gloves and dig in before it’s too arid to plant. In preparation, you’ll be able to find all the last-minute bedding plants, perennials and veggie starts you need, along with more advice than you can possibly use,…

Bicycle Bonanza

The weather is getting too pleasant to ignore, and those ’70s rockers in Queen had the right idea: “I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike!” So go ahead, strap on those cycling shoes and strut like Freddie Mercury today at the City Park Criterium. The…

Psycho Cowboy

The Old West has vanished, John Wayne is dead and — this just in — the two most famous ranch hands in America are gay. But there would be no point in telling any of that to Harlan Fairfax Carruthers, the deceptively charming protagonist of Down in the Valley. Like…

Vince Charming

You know how in most romantic comedies, the best friends are nearly always more interesting than the actual leads we’re supposed to care about? The Break-Up doesn’t play that game. Vince Vaughn is the focus and the primary source of entertainment, which is all the more impressive when you consider…

Deep-Sixed

There was a time when people moaned whenever Hollywood would remake — and thus suck the life out of — a classic movie. These days, Hollywood just sucks the life out of movies that weren’t that great in the first place. Ah, progress. Well, June 6, 2006, is upon us,…

Kicking French Ass

Let’s trade, action fans. Give up all 126 minutes of Mission: Impossible III’s digitized bloat and torture games, along with Poseidon’s more modest (yet somehow more numbing) 99 minutes in a computer-generated rain barrel. In exchange, you get roughly 1.7 seconds of a movie you’ve never heard of — a…

Jaws

Long before Steven Spielberg tackled the horrors of Nazi Germany or set out to save Private Ryan, he came up with the most captivating fish story since Moby-Dick. To be fair, pop novelist Peter Benchley made his own fair-sized contribution to the Jaws phenomenon, but it was Spielberg who transformed…

Hat Check

I enjoyed Crowns most when I closed my eyes and just listened. The music — gospel songs and spirituals, church music with just a touch of rap — includes such well-known pieces as “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” and “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In,” as well as several…

Now Playing

Fiction. Michael and Linda, both novelists, are long and happily married. But Linda has just been diagnosed with a brain tumor and told she has three weeks to live. She knows the kind of story almost everyone with a terminal diagnosis hears again and again — the exciting new treatment…

Starting Now

Believe it or not, in the 1950s, Colorado’s main art scene was seated not in Denver, but in Colorado Springs, of all places. The most sophisticated art in the region was being created by a loosely affiliated group of artists who were based down there and who represented a veritable…

New Talent

Like the pop charts, boutiques and Hollywood, the art world is always looking for the latest thing. And because the newest ideas are usually found in the ranks of unknown and emerging artists, juried shows are worth looking at, because that’s who they feature. Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive,…

Sketches

Apparition. The brand-new Gallery Severn, which is owned by art collector and retired executive Andy Dodd, aims to be what he has called a “launch pad” for emerging artists. This specialty in fresh faces instantly makes the place interesting. Also interesting is Dodd’s decision to feature only one artist at…

Dreams of Syndication

Will & Grace: Series Finale (Lions Gate) The way this got hustled to shelves, mere days after Will Truman and Grace Adler said their mushy farewells, you’d think it were some classic adios — another M*A*S*H or Cheers wrap-up. Alas, it was just another Very Special Episode of a show…

Our top DVD picks for the week of May 30.

The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.) A Fine Romance (Tango) Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (Dark Sky) Freedomland (Sony) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Fox) Hercules/Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules (Image) John Wayne: An American Icon Movie Collection (Universal) The Kids in the Hall: Complete Season 4 (A&E)…

Jesus Wept

If the creepy, self-flagellating albino monk in The Da Vinci Code really wanted to suffer, he’d drop his flesh-shredding cat-o’-nine-tails, pick up a controller and play The Da Vinci Code video game. It’s that bad. Now it can be told: The Da Vinci Code game is one of the crappiest,…