Not lacking conviction or cojones, Alejandro Amenábar’s Agora is a big, broad, stridently atheistic sword-and-sandals entertainment that recounts a tragic turning point in world history. Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a brilliant astronomer in fourth-century Alexandria whose life and work is increasingly threatened by a bloody societal shift toward reactionary, virulent…
Salt, famously the Spy Flick Rewritten for Angelina Jolie After Tom Cruise Dropped Out, has been publicized as the cinematic equivalent of the 19th Amendment: Finally, a level playing field for female action stars! This is mostly bullshit, of course — Jolie’s Evelyn Salt is not the first action hero…
An exercise in voyeurism, Maren Ade’s provocatively titled, superbly performed, emotionally graphic Everyone Else is more fascinating than enjoyable. Placing a youngish, newly formed couple under relentless observation, Ade’s two-hour squirmathon gets a bit more intimate on the subject of intimacy than the viewer might wish. The 34-year-old German director’s…
I love Phamaly, but I’m frequently unenthusiastic about the troupe’s choice of material. I skipped January’s Barefoot in the Park, having long ago been exposed to all the Neil Simon any human being should have to endure in a lifetime. When I heard that the current offering is the Disney…
If “Try to Remember” doesn’t move you, The Fantasticks plain isn’t working, and though the song carries all kinds of memories for me, I couldn’t summon up so much as a wistful thought hearing it sung in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production. As written, the show is sweet, pretty, clever…
Not lacking conviction or cojones, Alejandro Amenábar’s Agora is a big, broad, stridently atheistic sword-and-sandals entertainment that recounts a tragic turning point in world history. Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a brilliant astronomer in fourth-century Alexandria whose life and work is increasingly threatened by a bloody societal shift toward reactionary, virulent…
All this month, PlatteForum is presenting “Here at Home,” a series of events that are part of the Biennial of the Americas. Tonight’s act is Table Lessons, a performance by Tsehai Johnson, a conceptual artist who works with ceramics, both those of her own creation and those she finds in…
Sculptor Jefferson Rubin was part of a generation of artists who located in LoDo in the 1990s, where he opened La Scuola Classical Sculpture. A Colorado native, Rubin had studied in Italy. But in 1995, at the age of 36, he was tragically killed in a fiery crash. And though…
There are two Amante Coffee shops in Boulder, but Amante Uptown is not only located directly en route to some of the Boulder area’s favorite mountain rides, it also snugs right up to Boulder Cycle Sports, a cyclists’ magnet by nature. No wonder serious Boulder bicyclists and teams seem to…
“The environment we create is crazy,” explains Mikayla Houser, creator of the philanthropic organization Big Ball Pub Crawls. “It always starts out pretty mellow and ends up an absolutely ridiculous, fun time.” Sounds about right. Her first crawl, an ’80s ski-party theme that descended upon Golden in February, attracted some…
From the Baldwins to the Phoenixes to the Gyllenhaals, the history of cinema is littered with sibling rivalries — even if those rivalries are usually exaggerated or just plain imaginary. But one of the first sets of siblings to grace the silver screen was the Talmadge sisters. The dazzling, glamorous…
Steve Ballas, the top dog of his namesake frankfurter joint, is renowned for holding food challenges, the kind that involve stuffing your face with pizza, sugarcoating your belly with cupcakes and downing as many wieners as possible before you pop. It’s the latter battle that’s on today’s agenda at 1…
When Tyee Tilghman first stepped onto the stage at Curious six years ago — having been lured from Washington, D.C., by artistic director Chip Walton — it was clear Denver had attracted an actor of rare grace and intelligence. He returned the next year, intending to stay six months, and…
Kickball and fundraising don’t sound like natural bed partners, but the local charity kickball league KIFAC, by means of compromise, does both things, thanks to the ingenuity of KIFAC founder Patrick Brown. After first organizing the just-for-fun recreational league eight years ago, Brown asked his teammates if they’d donate to…
The Festivus Film Festival has been bringing serious independent cinema to Denver for the past three winters. But Festivus has a silly side, too, one that’s being expanded into a film-plus-standup-comedy showcase called the Laugh Track Comedy Festival. “One of the most popular blocks every year at Festivus is the…
Dust off your mountain bike, drag out your spandex and haul your butt up to Devil’s Thumb Ranch for today’s Women, Wheels and Wine event. Tailored for all ability levels, the day-long cycling journey gets rolling at 8:30 a.m. with a power breakfast, followed by breakout sessions on bike maintenance,…
Based on the model of the Bay Area’s Underground Farmers’ Market, the Denver Handmade Homemade Market, which hosts its third event tonight, is a prime example of people doing it themselves locally: Its premise — everyday folks sharing things they make, cook and grow, and networking in a grassroots setting…
Noted for a diverse array of children’s programming, the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council is expanding its lineup for adults with Mira! Un Artista, Una Hora (Look! One Artist, One Hour), a lecture series in which artists will discuss their art, inspiration and process. The first lecture features longtime CHAC…
To supplement this diet, KGNU offers a three-day Youth Radio Workshop each summer. Now in its tenth year, the workshop — open to youth ages twelve to nineteen — offers classes in broadcast skills, field-recording basics, sound-editing software, disc jockeying, creating news features/dramas and more. “We want youth voices on…
You might know Kyle Hollingsworth best as the keyboard player for the String Cheese Incident and frontman for his own project, the Kyle Hollingsworth Band. But he’s also an avid homebrewer and has an affinity for craft and specialty beers. “I’ve been trying for the past year to connect the…
Six years ago, North High School’s production of Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit electrified North Denver and, eventually, the whole city. As the first high-school production ever staged at the Buell Theater, Zoot Suit was lauded for its dramatic quality and for framing North High in a positive light. Its young…
In one of Ravi Zupa’s bits of film minutiae, a man rises out of the sand, brushes himself off like a newborn creature and runs up a dune before dissolving back into the sand. Walking among Zupa’s prodigious artworks, currently on display at Illiterate gallery, is a little like that:…
