It should be too early in the year to expect a good movie, yet here it is, the first — dare we use the term that’s been all but stripped of meaning by journalistic hacks — masterpiece of 2006. And from the director of 9 Songs, last year’s sex ‘n’…
So wait. It’s a movie about the longest criminal trial in U.S. history, it’s directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, and it stars…Vin Diesel in a wig? In a role originally intended for Joe Pesci? Can Lumet be serious? Actually, no. The characters may be based on real people, with…
It can’t be easy making films about war. It’s so inherently dramatic that, as a setting for art, it’s overdetermined; it drips with meaning even before the first scenes are set. And so much has been said already: War is hell. War is noble. War is surreal. War is absurd,…
Hollywood’s a sucker for cross-dressing. When the American Film Institute chose the 100 greatest comedies of all time, a pair of drag films — Some Like It Hot and Tootsie — earned the top two slots. From Operation Petticoat to White Chicks, slapping falsies on a dude is the fast…
Get out the whetstone and the blade, kids. Two of the most extreme Japanese samurai movies ever made are headed (or beheaded) for Boulder this weekend. Kihachi Okamoto’s Sword of Doom (1966) stars the brooding Tatsuya Nakadai as a sociopathic swordsman bereft of scruple, compassion or code — a new…
Colorado painter Sushe Felix has been listening to a lot of old jazz lately. Especially important to her are the pieces that interpret the classics written by Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen. She also likes Burt Bacharach numbers, especially the way Dusty Springfield sings them. Felix…
A little over a decade ago, Denver International Airport opened to the public and unveiled its multimillion-dollar collection of public art. Only a handful of pieces that were commissioned have stood up well to changing tastes. One work that looks as good as ever — and has been a hit…
Auditioning Gods, et al. Arvada Center curator Jerry Gilmore has organized a quartet of shows devoted to recent work by Colorado artists. In the lower galleries, Bryan Andrews presents Auditioning Gods, which continues the “fetem” sculpture series he’s been pursuing for years. These hand-carved wooden sculptures are an attempt to…
There has been a great deal of excitement around The War Anthology, which began when Curious Theatre Company artistic director Chip Walton and assistant director Bonnie Metzgar commissioned several writers to create stage pieces based on war photographs. Anticipation grew when the theater announced the participation of Pulitzer winners Paula…
There’s nothing more romantic than being young and in love in New York City, walking together along the worn, sooty streets touched by that filtered city sunlight, oblivious to the sound of traffic and the rush and impatience of the anonymous crowd. The Last Five Years has been widely described…
Amy’s View. The protagonist of David Hare’s Amy’s View is a London stage actress, Esme Allen. By the play’s opening, her star has dimmed and she hasn’t worked in a few years. Still, she’s stylish and witty, accustomed to sweeping into rooms and commanding attention. She believes in the theater…
Through the Fire (Disney) He’s averaging just nine points in his second season for the Portland Trail Blazers, but considering where he came from and what he’s overcome, Sebastian Telfair is doing just fine, thank you. Jonathan Hock’s fascinating documentary takes us back to the young New York basketball legend’s…
All Dogs Go to Heaven/All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (MGM) American Psycho (Lions Gate) Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers (Warner Bros.) Basic Instinct: Ultimate Edition (Lions Gate) Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo — The Little Black Book Edition (Disney) A Fish Called Wanda (MGM) Get Shorty/Be Cool (MGM)…
Gamers have a derogatory name for people who prize a game’s visuals above all: “graphic whores.” But sometimes great graphics can enhance game play — or even provide an experience that couldn’t have occurred otherwise. Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox 360 is a perfect example. The boxers in…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
