In 2003, Sandra Phillips opened her namesake gallery in a funky former hair salon on Santa Fe Drive. One unfortunate aspect of the space was a spiral staircase that created a dangerous obstacle: I came dangerously close to banging my head against it many times. But despite such physical shortcomings,…
Becoming van Gogh. Timothy Standring, the Denver Art Museum’s curator of painting and sculpture, is the brains behind the very compelling, very interesting and, most of all, very successful Becoming van Gogh, on display now. When we think of van Gogh, we are actually only thinking of the work of…
Dixie’s Tupperware Party. Dixie is a booze- and sex-addicted, trash-talking, child-neglecting ex-con from Alabama who holds Tupperware parties in her trailer, and she’s invited you to this one. Dixie’s Tupperware Party at the Galleria really is a Tupperware party — you get a name tag and raffle number when you…
If you recently had a close encounter with the howling demon known as Hurricane Sandy, you might have a renewed belief in global warming. If not, consider yourself lucky, then see Chasing Ice, director Jeff Orlowski’s beautiful yet sobering documentary about the world’s rapidly melting ice caps. His guide is…
A stacked-deck theological inquiry filtered through a Titanic-by-way-of-Slumdog Millionaire narrative, Life of Pi manages occasional spiritual wonder through its 3-D visuals, but otherwise sinks like a stone. It’s no shock that Ang Lee brings to his high-seas adventure graceful and refined aesthetics devoid of any unique signature or pressing emotion,…
When Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi) tells the new man in her life that she likes “indie” movies, it’s both a declaration of identity and a dare. The man, Brian (David Oyelowo), a bus driver who has politely but persistently pursued Ruby after driving her home from her overnight nursing shift at…
Silver Linings Playbook, which stars Bradley Cooper as a manic-depressive man-child attempting to get his life back together after a breakdown, won the coveted Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and subsequently shot to the top of most Oscar prognosticators’ Best Picture short list. The film’s…
There are big changes afoot at Miners Alley, the small, bright and hospitable theater established by Rick Bernstein almost a decade ago in Golden after running a Morrison company he’d founded in 1989. But after close to 25 years in the business, at the start of the new year, Bernstein…
In Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the unprincipled seducer tries his wiles on the virtuous and beautiful Dona Ana, whose father challenges him to a duel and is killed — only to reappear in the final moments of the opera as a towering moving statue and drag the unrepentant Don Juan down…
The Thanksgiving holiday is all about two things: food and giving thanks, usually in that order. But for close to four decades, Mile High United Way’s Turkey Trot has been counteracting this annual orgy of overeating with an energizing race that gets families off the couch and outdoors. The run,…
As today’s Black Friday shopping showdown plays out in malls across the state, gift buyers can feel excited, overwhelmed and even fearful. But for the past half-decade, Buy Local Week has worked to ease that tension and shift the focus from big-box blowouts to a celebration of local retailers —…
“If you’re ready to emerge from your Thanksgiving food coma and burn some of those holiday calories off, Copper Mountain has plenty of activities to be thankful for,” says resort spokeswoman Austyn Williams. “Our Olympic-sized, 22-foot superpipe will be opening for Thanksgiving weekend, and on Saturday, we also have our…
Want to walk off those Thanksgiving leftovers and also avoid the mobs at the mall? The Victorian Holiday Home Tour, now in its third year, is a Saturday-afternoon jaunt along East Colfax Avenue, with tours of seven historic homes all gussied up for the holidays. “What we’d really like is…
Susan Meyer might be one of Denver’s most unique artists, yet she hasn’t had a full exhibition since 2004, when her installation Malfunction Junction — a room-sized roller-coaster track ablaze with synchronized lighting that crashed from the heights into another, flatter dimension — blew more than a few minds at…
Carrie MaKenna has been hosting a holiday “feast of the arts” at her studio, Anam Cara Living Arts Studio & Gallery, for the past four years. But the fifth edition will include something new: a Purple Friday sales special. “All of the hoopla about Black Friday and getting up at…
If you’ve worn out your I Love Toy Trains DVDs and are ready to take the next step into toy-train obsession, the place to do it is the Rocky Mountain Toy Train Show. “There’s something for every level — even people who just want to come for some entertainment value…
For some Denver families, the day after Thanksgiving means hitting the malls (or your local boutique) for holiday gifts and deals, or maybe catching a movie. But others head religiously to the Rocky Mountain Auto Show, a three-day, hot-metal extravaganza showcasing the cherriest hot rods, customized sports cars, detailed motorcycles…
Whether through his walking tours of Capitol Hill or his numerous books on Denver history, if you’ve lived in the city for any period of time, you’ve no doubt encountered the name Phil Goodstein. And now the fourth-generation native has once again proved that his curiosity has no bounds, releasing…
Since longtime Denver artist Bill Amundson returned to his home town of Stoughton, Wisconsin, two years ago — something he refers to as his “exile here in the cheese gulag” — he’s had plenty of time to work, an essential step in rendering the large, highly detailed pencil drawings he’s…
If you recently had a close encounter with the howling demon known as Hurricane Sandy, you might have a renewed belief in global warming. If not, consider yourself lucky, then see Chasing Ice, director Jeff Orlowski’s beautiful yet sobering documentary about the world’s rapidly melting ice caps. His guide is…
With the holiday season ahead, many people will be dressing for comfort — the better to accommodate the mass quantities of food they’ll consume. For proof that it is possible to dress comfortably and be fashionable at the same time, look no further than to Grand Junction native and cosmetologist…
Forget Thanksgiving: For many people, the official holiday is Thanksgiving Eve — one of the busiest days of the year for partying. Many bars will be offering parties, but you have other, more sober options, including several fundraisers for worthy causes. And no matter what you wind up doing tomorrow,…
