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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Tonight’s 78th annual Academy Awards presentation promises to be the gayest in history: Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica are among the flicks featuring homosexual or transgendered themes to earn major nominations. But no matter who wins, official Hollywood’s version of a coming-out party will have nothing on Cowboys, Capote and…
If you’re a parent trying to teach your sullen teenage kids that movies with subtitles aren’t all bad, take them to see Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor). Like Christophe Gans’s The Brotherhood of the Wolf or Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it’s a foreign-language film that proves that geekdom observes…
The world premiere of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party at the Toronto International Film Festival last September had the vibe of a sold-out concert — all those spotlights beaming to and fro in front of a venerable old theater, all that pushing and shoving for the best seats, all those celebs…
Didn’t Richard Donner retire? A 1980s star-director name, among many, that should now send bolts of discouraging dread down your spine, Richard Donner may well be seeing his filmmaking skills peak with 16 Blocks — even if saying it’s his best, least flatulent, most efficient film is tantamount to saying…
What do little girls want? If we are to follow the emotional heart of Aquamarine, a new film about two thirteen-year-olds who help a runaway mermaid fall in love, the answer isŠbling. Hailey (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, pretty much a Lindsay Lohan ringer) and Claire (Emma Roberts) are best friends in…
Financed on a budget of just $500,000 (by San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos) and produced by a skeleton crew of four young filmmakers, a new World War II documentary called The 11th Day is earning attention and provoking amazement as it quietly makes its way around the country without…
In the late 1960s and through the 1970s, there arose what has come to be called the “art of identity.” This genre was — and is — art by members of identifiable groups trying to explicate their specific and peculiar struggles for social justice and equality. To call something “art…
In the western half of Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200) is ADVENTURES, a solo of strange sculptures by Lydia Brokaw-Nelson. Some are fairly interesting — such as the one of a log with its bark removed in a continuous piece — but others, including the dress made of…
