What a Drag

Tyra Banks without the word “fierce” is like Paris Hilton without “That’s hot.” Celebrities co-opting colloquialisms is an absurd alliteration, but it’s an even more ridiculous marketing ploy. So turn off the E! and find some cheap entertainment tonight at Fierce Sunday at Club Evolution, 821 22nd Street — where…

Still Waters

It’s time all you cultural slackers learned a thing or two about Clyfford Still. He’s not as well-known as some of his flashier abstract-expressionist contemporaries, but the reclusive twentieth-century painter’s legacy is poised to become a local treasure with the news that the City of Denver — which already cut…

Singles Mingle

These days, it seems like nobody wants to be single. And truly, after a while the one-night stands, blind dates and online encounters get a little old. For singles looking to change their status, three different companies dedicated to hooking people up (Cottonwood Connection, PreDating and Singles Marketplace) will join…

Let’s Make a Deal

It’s hard to imagine President Dwight D. Eisenhower shackled in a cage at Guantanamo Bay. But if Ike were around today to say what he said in 1961 in his famous farewell speech to the nation, the radical nationalists of the Bush administration would surely not take kindly to it…

Free for All

If you plan to see The Libertine, an artful and brooding period piece about a scandalously debauched earl of the English Restoration, a few words of advice before you go: Take a peek at the sun; drink in some fresh air; consider bidding goodbye to the majority of the color…

Oh, Grow Up

A star who turned into a black hole somewhere between the release of, oh, The Wedding Planner and Sahara (or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Two for the Money — really, where to draw the line?), Matthew McConaughey is better known of late for shooting tequila…

Look Away

Anyone who remembers the 1977 Wes Craven film The Hills Have Eyes, which was and remains a piece of Milwaukee-beer shit, remembers it because a) they had a memorable fuck-or-puke night at the aging neighborhood drive-in; b) Michael Berryman’s uniquely hairless mug, which glared from the video-store horror sections for…

Mama Junkie

Those among you who are easily impressionable, be warned: Down to the Bone features irresponsible behavior that should not be duplicated at home. On Halloween night, as she preps her kids for costumed fun, Irene (Vera Farmiga) augments her own witch costume by . . .blacking out one of her…

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America

Kevin Willmott’s satirical fantasy, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, embraces the fictions that the South won the Civil War (better make that “the War of Northern Aggression”), that disgraced Abraham Lincoln fled to Canada (so did Thoreau, Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe), that slavery now exists in all fifty…

Civics Centered

In May 2005, Denver voters approved the financing for a new multi-part Justice Center complex with a municipal courthouse and a jail to be built in the greater Civic Center area. I thought that particular spot, being right next door to the United States Mint, was such an odd choice…

Clyfford Still Museum

The Civic Center area is the cultural hub of Denver, and last week the city announced that the Clyfford Still Museum would join the other attractions there. The Still Museum, which has not yet been designed, will be located south of West 13th Avenue on the east side of Bannock…

Sketches

Abstract Symbols. No sooner had Tracy Felix taken down his show at the William Havu Gallery than Sushe Felix, his wife, put up her own, a major exhibit with some three dozen paintings. The show has an epic-length title — Abstract Symbols From Nature and the Unconscious, new paintings by…

A Shore Bet

Imagine you’re at an unnamed beach, surrounded by sand, salt-laden air and the sound of the sea rolling endlessly in and out, everything around you in muted shades of beige, silver and blue. By the weathered boardwalk, you meet two enchanting sisters. Lucy, a banker, is balanced, grounded, logical and…

Slow Fade

Some time ago, I met Kathleen Widdoes at a writers’ conference in Prague. Most people who recognize the name at all know Widdoes from her role on As the World Turns, but she is a classically trained stage actress; I remembered her as a vital, witty and beautiful Beatrice in…

Now Playing

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,…

This Dogg’s Got Bite

The Tenants (Sony> Fifteen seconds into the video for “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang,” it was obvious that Snoop Dog had charisma to spare. More than a decade later, with his performance as ’70s-era radical author Willie Spearmint, it’s official: The man can act. Snoop’s shambling, searing performance is just…

Our top DVD picks for the week of March 9, 2006.

The Best of the Best of The Electric Company (Shout Factory) Breaking News (Palm) Buster Keaton: 65th-Anniversary Collection (Sony) The Californians (Hart Sharp) Curse Death & Spirit (Asia Vision) The Easter Bunny Is Comin’ to Town (Warner Bros.) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros.) The House on…

Ghouls on the Go

Ask gamers of a certain age about Resident Evil, and a vivid memory springs to mind: They’re inching down a long, quiet hallway. Suddenly, a zombie dog crashes through a window. A ghostly howl. Insatiable jaws. Mommy, can you tuck me in tonight? The original Resident Evil pretty much single-handedly…

Hands-On Art

Red Delicious is a printing press, and it’s also a place: The printmaking facility and co-op named after its centerpiece — the candy-apple-red enameled press that gives the space life — offers opportunities and classes for artists, as well as an exhibit area. Even the venue itself, housed in the…

Merry Pranksters

When someone moves, it’s only polite to throw them a going-away party. Since none of you inconsiderate people offered your services to bid Jazz@Jack’s old location farewell, the staff took it upon themselves to make their last week at 1553 Platte Street #202 as memorable as possible. Tonight’s show is…

Hari Situation

Execution by firing squad is probably not as romantic as classic war flicks would lead you to believe. It’s likely that those Tombstone Pizza commercials are pretty inaccurate, too. A gal like Mata Hari could have used that kind of detailed information before she met her own fate on the…

Good Goddess!

If male and female energy were universally balanced, metaphysically speaking, then there would be no sexism, no archaic stereotypes and certainly no “Fix me a sandwich, woman” crap. Sure, meatheads everywhere would mourn the passing of beer on demand, but with International Women’s Day fast approaching, it’s high time everyone…