Mel Brooks’s none-too-funny parody of Star Wars, 1987’s Spaceballs, was released at the low ebb of the great comedian’s career. Two of Brooks’s most inventive movie hits, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, were already ancient history, buried back in the 1970s chapter of his life, and Broadway wouldn’t reinvent the…
Dorothy and Toto wistfully daydreamed about going over the rainbow, but The Other Side Arts gallery and Denver boutique Macho Sissy are focused on a much more purposeful destination as they present Beyond the Rainbow: A Multimedia, Multicultural, Multisexual Art Show, opening Friday, June 13. The event is part of…
Thursday, June 12 The nation’s oldest (and one of its biggest) whitewater events gets under way today in Salida, where the rambunctious Arkansas River races down from its headwaters with great purpose through one of the most technically challenging stretches of rapids anywhere. Several competitions, including the signature Pro Raft…
Clara Brown is not your typical operatic heroine. She’s no done-wrong courtesan, dying of consumption. She’s no callow teen, dying of a broken heart. She’s no Jezebel, no Valkyrie. She’s a washerwoman, an ex-slave who came to the gold camps of Colorado when she was about sixty years old (birth…
SAT, 6/14 Ever wished you could have been one of Mr. Roarke’s guests on Fantasy Island? Well, now’s your chance — sort of. The Church nightclub, at 1160 Lincoln Street, dishes up Carnival at 9 p.m. tonight, serving up a hearty helping of 1970s- seasoned cheese that includes gyrating go-go…
SAT, 6/14 Bob Bennish thinks the first annual Rocky Mountain Recumbent Rally will be relaxing. After all, participants — riding recumbent bicycles on which the riders are almost lying down — have to exert less effort than cyclists on upright models. “It’s more efficient and easier,” says organizer Bennish, himself…
TUES, 6/17 How, after seeing all that he saw, did Jack readjust to normal life once he descended the beanstalk? The Arvada Center deals with this question in the children’s-theater production of Under the Beanstalk. The answer? He didn’t. Picking up where the traditional tale leaves off, Under the Beanstalk…
FRI, 6/13 Carl Sagan once said, “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” At the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the time is now, and the place is the new Space Odyssey exhibit, which opens at 9 a.m. today. “Science is the creative exploration of the world and…
SAT, 6/14 Many new phrases — Ground Zero, “Let’s roll,” “axis of evil” — have entered the American lexicon since terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The latest, “Dixie Chicked,” is a term signifying political backlash — and it’s one that rebel comedian Bill Maher can probably…
Summertime. For some of us, that means time to slow down, fire up the grill, stroll through free street fairs, maybe make out in the back of a car at the drive-in. Others want to experience every waking moment to the max: whitewater kayaking, mountain climbing, marathon running. No matter…
There’s no question about it. Temperatures are in the 80s. The days are longer. School is out. Inappropriate spandex is everywhere at Washington Park. The moths are back — in every nook, cranny and orifice. Your significant other is wearing the enchanting scent Off! to repel West Nile-virus-carrying mosquitoes. Aurora…
I’d finally driven my 1986 Jeep Wagoneer into the ground. I’d driven it over the Rockies and the Sierras and all sorts of lesser mountain ranges. I’d driven it to the second-largest meteor crater in the country, just past the oil derricks and the tumbleweeds outside Odessa, Texas. I’d driven…
You know you’re in Denver when people get up earlier on Saturday than they do on weekdays. They get up early so they can get out and walk, run, ride. In 2001, I moved to Colorado from the big city. The really big city, New York. I brought with me…
People frequently ask me what qualifications I have be the Drink of the Week girl. My only answer: I’m a lush. To gain my alcohol expertise, I haven’t attended a cheesy bartending college or struggled through a twelve-step program (yet). My only credential — my only excuse — is that…
My favorite warm-weather activity is relaxing on a patio, fresh drink in hand, on a long summer evening, as the lingering sun covers everything with that gentle golden glow. To help you find that magic moment, we’ve rounded up some of the area’s hottest patios; they’re guaranteed to make your…
It’s usually right about this time of year that film critics, especially those of advancing years, begin to feel a slow chill of dread creep up their spines. Suppressing that reaction, they find it quickly replaced by a sudden rush of sneering condescension and smug mock martyrdom. “Oh, no!” they…
Megan Smith was really just a girl when she attended her first Ladyfest three years ago. At fifteen, the Thornton high school student persuaded her mother and her grandmother to hop on a plane bound for Chicago, where Ladyfest Midwest sprawled and squalled through the metropolis like one of the…
How do summer music festivals get started? Are they products of some mammoth marketing machine, designed to milk as many dollars as possible from a public hungry for entertainment? Or are they like a suburban-neighborhood block party that starts out as two families grilling together one summer afternoon and then…
Surely one of the most appealing art-world attractions in Denver this spring is JUDY PFAFF: New Work, at Denver’s prestigious Robischon Gallery. It’s the kind of thing that’s unexpected in the off-season, but there’s a reason Denver audiences are being treated to such a big deal at this time of…
In the intimate and inviting Viewing Room in the back of the Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788) is a wonderful show, Trine Bumiller: new paintings. The elegant Bumillers provide the perfect visual chaser to Judy Pfaff, which is on display up front (see review). True, the space in the…
In staging The War Plays, Promethean Theatre is trying to open a dialogue about the causes of war and its horrors. This is a good time for such a dialogue. Neoconservative ex-CIA director James Woolsey recently told an enthusiastic Denver audience that in conquering Iraq, the United States has won…
The Bas Bleu Theatre Company stands in the heart of Fort Collins’s old town, a pleasant collection of galleries, eateries and shops that is less commercial than the downtown malls of either Denver or Boulder. The theater stages stimulating work in a tiny, beautifully converted auditorium that seats forty people…
