Tricks and Treats

Extreme tour sets no limits mon 8/9 If you thought this summer’s opening of the new Halfpipe coaster at Six Flags Elitch Gardens was extreme, bro, prepare to have your top completely blown. Sports Illustrated for Kids takes it to the max with, like, seven X’s today and tomorrow during…

Evening of the Improv

Whose Line regulars up the ante on the road sat 8/7 As regular cast members on ABC’s Emmy-nominated Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood are at the top of their respective improvisational comedy games. Mochrie, a longtime comedian who appeared on the original British version of…

Painting the Town

D.C. Gallery welcomes urban artist Glenn Barr FRI 8/6 The sun only shines in Detroit about 75 days a year. That’s fine by underground artist Glenn Barr, who lives and paints in the Motor City. “It’s perpetually overcast here, and when you have that sort of inescapable filter over the…

Eye Spy

Peeping Toms get clicking for art’s sake FRI 8/6 The technological trend of “moblogging” (sharing mobile-phone images on the Internet) has prompted legislation that, if passed, would deter seedy Kodak moments from being snapped in places like restrooms and fitting rooms. The law could allocate a whole new value to…

Mixed Messages

It’s the biggest art news of the summer — but don’t get excited, because it’s not necessarily a good thing: The + Zeile Judish Gallery is now minus Judish and has changed its name to + Gallery. Both the story and the new name strike me as ridiculous. I spoke…

Artbeat

Peter Illig’s solo (see review) is rocking the front of Pirate: a contemporary art oasis (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058), making it a hard act to follow. Luckily for us, emerging artist Warren Kelly, whose show children’s games is installed in the Associates’ Space, stands up to Illig’s more ambitious endeavor…

Now Showing

Dots, Blobs and Angels. Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art is presenting an enormous solo that is dedicated to the late David Rigsby, an artist who played a big part in the local art scene in the ’70s and ’80s. The exhibit was organized by director Cydney Payton, who installed it…

Talent Triumphs

All right, I’ll confess: I really didn’t want to see the PHAMALy (Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League, Incorporated) production of Guys and Dolls. In principle, I’m all for the idea of a troupe of handicapped actors putting on a show, and I had no doubt such a project would…

Class Dismissed

I suppose if I’d done my homework, I’d have been less disappointed by Central City Opera’s production of The Student Prince. Other than a vague memory of some infectiously rousing drinking songs, I knew nothing about the operetta. I thought it would have the dizzy, stylish melodiousness of Johann Strauss…

Encore

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…

Summer Camp

Jonathan Demme’s gutsy The Manchurian Candidate, which dares to rear its head just as the Democratic National Convention convenes in Boston, is the anti-Bush-administration movie for those who refuse to see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 or Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed because, well, they just ain’t Right. It’s less a remake of…

Company Line

Near the beginning of The Corporation, a damning documentary designed to expose everything that is irresponsible, immoral, inhumane and lethal about corporations, the narrator posits the film’s thesis: “We present the corporation as a paradox,” she says, “an institution that creates great wealth but causes enormous and often hidden harm.”…

Thunder Rolls

If you’re, oh, eleven years old and you’ve had it up to here with Spider-Man’s current case of existential angst, it’s time to blow your weekly allowance on Thunderbirds. This special-effects-crammed action blockbuster aims a bit lower, age-wise, which is to say its hyperactive young hero wears a retainer on…

Touchdown!

Last year, 165,000 books were published in this country, and this year’s final score could come close. No respectable gambler would make book on the chance that one volume would break out of the pack — but 4th and Fixed has the feel of a winner. Reggie Rivers, former fullback…

This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, July 29 The popularity of blue-around-the-collar American characters never seems to wane: Just witness how quickly tickets sold out for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour II’s four Denver dates this week at the Buell Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets. They were gone in an instant, snapped up by faithful…

Killing (Stuffed) Animals for Art

Fresh out of the East and rising into the international art world are unique toys for adults. No, not those kinds of toys. Well, maybe those kinds of toys. “Mine are pornographic,” says Capsule curator Lauri Lynnxe Murphy of the artwork she’s included in the gallery’s Plush: Perverse Playthings. Without…

Talking Shop

Silvana Vukadin-Hoitt is a woman of the world. The German-born Bosnian speaks four languages and has been there, done that, and still hasn’t grown tired of it all. For Vukadin-Hoitt, every day, even the quiet ones spent overseeing her neighborhood boutique, Silvana L’Amour, promises adventure of some sort. Her enthusiasm…

Turn, Turn, Turn

A childhood dominated by soccer saw many of my summer days spent on the sprawling grounds of Dove Valley. There, surrounded by the burnt-sienna landscape, sat acre after acre of impossibly verdant, illegally watered fields. Soccer players — from the skilled Hispanic city dwellers to the bleached-blond suburban machines –…

Absolute Scoot

SAT, 7/31 “Last year, even Mayor Hickenlooper hung out at the Bluebird. He showed up with his scooter, flip-flops and even a Hawaiian shirt,” says Phil Lombardo. Unfortunately, Hizzoner is on vacation and won’t be back for this year’s Mile High Mayhem, but the rest of the city will rev…

Ready for Takeoff

SUN, 8/1 Cirque du Soleil is dazzling, but audience members often find themselves gasping as much from the high-flying prices as from the high-flying stunts. For the next two weeks, Boulder’s Frequent Flyers offers some relief, with Cirque-like performances at prices that won’t make spectators queasy. Starting today, the Flyers’…

Tear-Jerker Ending?

Members of the Denver City Council and community leaders have been talking a lot lately about improving East Colfax Avenue. And I have to admit, even if I love the honky-tonk character of the street — and I do — it does look pretty shabby in places. This is strange,…

Artbeat

A few years ago, University of Colorado regents made the rash decision to abandon the school’s Health Sciences Center campus in east Denver and move it to the Fitzsimons campus in Aurora. As illogical as that idea was, there’s no second-guessing it now, because it’s a fait accompli. Departments of…