Say hello to a pop-cinema masterpiece. This new Japanese import opens with a massive thud not unlike Godzilla’s footfall, and its cinematic legacy stretches back almost as far. It’s got crafty Samurai action, hilarious bits of business, insightful observations into the human condition and geysers of kitschy computer-generated blood. Oh,…
The final installment of the gory trilogy that launched, then buoyed up, horrormeister Sam Raimi’s directorial career, 1993’s Army of Darkness, goes for broke in the outrageous plotting department. The innocent hero, played by a wisecracking Bruce Campbell, is transported back to the fourteenth-century stamping grounds of King Arthur –…
Comedian Kathy Griffin’s days as Suddenly Susan’s funny-voiced female sidekick, Vicki, may be gone — the sitcom ended in 2000 — but the wry-comment queen is still popping up all over the place, whether it’s in an Eminem video (“The Real Slim Shady”) or as host of the reality show…
Thursday, August 12 The sky is falling, the sky is falling! But we’re talking about the annual Perseid Meteor Shower, so you have nothing to fear. A magnificent show is a possibility tonight, particularly around and after midnight (weather permitting), thanks to this year’s coinciding dark moon. But DU astronomy…
Denver goes to the theater, and that’s a fact. From touring shows and homegrown, big-time productions at the Denver Performing Arts Center to independent projects funded by grants and realized through the sheer grit of small companies, the metro area supports quality presentations on many stages. Hand in hand with…
On vacation in Vancouver, Denverites Cal Smith and David Citizen wandered into a fragrant Chinese spice shop and fell in love with the place. More important, they noted that Denver had nothing like it, and in an entrepreneurial moment, decided to try their hand in the spice business when they…
Imagine an indoor, glow-in-the-dark miniature golf course that feels like Alice in Wonderland meets Tron — with a dash of Dr. Timothy Leary thrown in. That’s the Putting Edge in Westminster. If you’re looking for tunnels and giant windmills, you won’t find them here. This “carpeted country club,” located in…
SAT, 8/14 Chas Gale took one long, sensuous step into the world of Argentine tango in 1997 and never looked back. “People always say they didn’t find the tango, the tango found them,” Gale says, and he was no different. “I tried swing dancing and dabbled in salsa, and then…
SUN, 8/15 It’s a left! And a right! And a left! And a . . . Does it seem like the body politic is reeling under the assault of the current presidential election? Or does it appear as if some folks are ducking their responsibility to make a choice in…
There are no crystal pitchers of lemon-lime water or misty bottles of lavender spritz in the student-run Emily Griffith Opportunity Salon. The spartan space is housed on the third floor of a nondescript building at 1250 Welton Street, just a tease-comb’s throw from the Denver Diner and the new jail…
Though it’s a block or so to the south, there’s no missing the University of Denver campus while driving along I-25. For that matter, you can’t miss it from South University Boulevard or Evans Avenue, either. It’s all those recently built, eye-popping post-modern buildings. This architectural prominence wasn’t always true…
Along with a lot of other people in Denver, I had my heart broken last winter when Skyline Park was bulldozed. The decision to destroy the park, which runs for three blocks along Arapahoe Street between 15th and 18th streets, was the last of many terrible moves made by the…
When I was in my early teens and an aspiring actress, I read a book by Richard Boleslavsky titled Acting: The First Six Lessons. As I remember, one of these lessons is about a young actress who’s been cast as Ophelia. Although she has found the necessary emotion in herself,…
Jules Massenet’s The Juggler of Notre Dame (Le Jongleur de Notre Dame) was first performed in 1902, and until Central City Opera took it on, it hadn’t been staged in the United States for half a century. It’s a medieval tale, with an essentially timeless theme — the same story…
Emerson Woelffer, et al. The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center has a rich assortment of attractions this summer. An Exhibition by Dale Chihuly showcases the artist’s ’70s-era glass work, which was inspired by American Indian art. One of his chandeliers has been installed in the lobby, and the solo also…
Antony and Cleopatra. Director Robert Benedetti states in the program notes that he has brought a Hollywood sensibility to this text, but the CU production remains stagnant and difficult to follow, perhaps because so many of the actors garble their lines. Antony has been neglecting his duties in Rome for…
In the 1950s, pneumatic Hollywood glamour girls like Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell made it their business to ensnare unsuspecting men with a combination of cunning, raw charm and decolletage. So it is in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a splendid 1953 trifle in which the sassy seductresses hunt their prey on…
Sheathed in a custom-tailored gray suit and sporting expensively barbered silver hair, Tom Cruise looks like an older, harder version of the self-absorbed L.A. sharpie he played sixteen years ago in Rain Man. But in Collateral, a frenetic Michael Mann action thriller that runs up a Baghdad-level body count, the…
There is nothing mysterious or subdued about Stacy Peralta’s enthusiasms. A product of Southern California’s vivid beach scene, Peralta’s been a surfer since boyhood and was a professional skateboarder in the Œ70s before he started making documentaries about the defining moments of those sports. The phenomenally successful Dogtown and Z-Boys…
In its first year, the Hoi Polloi Music Fest is already the largest event of its kind in the United States: an all-ages, family-style marathon of good vibes and grinding guitars that features a dozen acts in four days. And though the heavy-hitting Christian artists — including MXPX, P.O.D., Switchfoot…
Thursday, August 5 A mixture of musical styles inspired by Mexico and unique to the Southwest — from Tex-Mex to mariachi — will be in the spotlight during El Centro Su Teatro’s eighth annual Chicano Music Festival, a five-day event that’s also a well-disguised fundraiser for the long-lived Hispanic community…
Abelardo Barrientos “Lalo” Delgado died of cancer a couple of weeks ago. His death is a huge casualty to the Chicano community, and not just here in Denver where he lived, but in Texas and New Mexico and California, too — wherever Chicanos (that unique Hispanic substratum here in the…
