A new kind of war movie for a new kind of war, Body of Lies is about the War on Terror as it is being waged on the ground, in the air, but most of all in cyberspace. Directed with terrific verve by Ridley Scott (coming after the listless American…
The old people remember the past,” a narrator says early in The Exiles over a prologue of Edward S. Curtis photographs — faces of aged Native Americans who may have had their lands taken away, but not their history or memories. For the length of Kent MacKenzie’s 1961 feature, the…
Although there was only a small audience for Listen Productions’ Mediamockracy on the night I attended, its members were intensely involved in the play. As I discovered during the actor-audience chats inserted into the performance, these were media-savvy people, deeply aware of the role of news dissemination in a democracy…
I was so bored during the first act of The Trip to Bountiful that I had trouble staying in my seat — and this despite a powerful performance from Kathleen M. Brady as Carrie Watts, the elderly woman trapped in a Houston apartment with her son, Ludie, and his disagreeable…
Les Misérables is a huge, sprawling musical filled with emotional songs that tell the story of Victor Hugo’s novel. The plot centers on the merciless pursuit of a freed prisoner, Jean Valjean, by a bitter police detective, Javert. In the course of the chase, which continues over several decades, we…
No one knows exactly how many young women have been murdered in the Mexican border town of Juárez over the last decade, perhaps three or four hundred. The murder rate shot up after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1994, when several U.S. companies set up…
With no exhibition director on staff at present, the art program at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities is essentially rudderless. Executive director Gene Sobczak is running the program in his spare time, but he is no art expert, and he’s busy with other duties. In addition, Sobczak…
Adam Helms. This MCA solo is the New York artist’s first museum show anywhere. In his works on paper and in a monumental sculpture that conjures up a shooting blind, Helms explores political themes, especially armed struggle. He takes images of different radical and extremist movements from different places and…
Curse of the Starving Class. The moment you walk into the theater, you know you’re in Sam Shepard country — a place suffused with memories of the mythic Old West, but where the breadth and purity of that myth serve only to underline the disappointing realities of contemporary life. You…
There are copious ways to link How to Lose Friends & Alienate People and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Both are based on feather-light books that take a good hour to read for those who scan slowly; both feature actors on the cult side of stardom who do far better…
Redolent of Roman decadence and authority gone mad, the title Religulous rolls pleasingly off the tongue. But Bill Maher’s one-man standup attack on religious fundamentalism is a dog that has more bark than bite — a skeptical, secular-humanist hounding of the hypocrites, amusingly annotated with sarcastic subtitles and clips from…
It’s amazing how inexhaustible abstract expressionism is as an aesthetic ideology, both in its attenuated original form — going strong for sixty years now – and in its heir, neo-abstract expressionism. Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173) is currently hosting a pair of exhibits that highlight this long-lasting appeal. In…
If you like your backcountry riding videos shot in high definition, using gorgeous framing and impeccable cinematography; featuring the talents of an array of backcountry experts; filmed in British Columbia, Alaska and Silverton, Colorado; interlaced with tidbits of mountain history spoken by the people who actually lived through it; and…
Canadian-born Fred Everything seems destined to take his place alongside house-music maestros like Mark Farina and Miguel Migs as a masterful purveyor of innovative and appealing deep house. His work shows a solid knowledge and thorough respect for the style’s history and roots, as well as a refusal to be…
Witness how well the ability to put beautiful art on skin translates to more traditional media as Th’ink Tank presents a joint show for painters Jenny Lee and Sandi Calistro, both of whom work as tattoo artists. Although both pull from pop art and surrealism and feature women and the…
First there was “A Quick One While He’s Away,” Then an Alley, S.F. Sorrow, Tommy and Quadrophenia. Then there was Jesus Christ Superstar. And opening tonight for its world premiere at the New Denver Civic Theatre, 721 Santa Fe Drive, is Magdalene, Woman of Light. Following the story of Mary…
If anything’s been a success for the Denver Public Library’s Fresh City Life series, it’s the knitting track. “We’ve offered it for long time,” says Fresh City Life honcho Chris Loffelmacher. “The knitting classes are tried-and-true, and they don’t run out of gas. But because the intermediate-level classes are much…
“Apocalyptic,” “playful,” “druggy,” “deviant,” “defying analysis”: These are just some of the descriptions critics have applied to painter Daniel Richter’s oeuvre. Richter’s artistic foundation (he was born in 1962) was built on punk rock; he worked as a graphic designer of album covers and concert posters before continuing on to…
We might be headed toward the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, but that doesn’t mean you should eschew fashion and start shopping clearance racks and Wal-Mart. Heavens, no! To save beaucoup bucks and still be totally stylish, head to today’s Fall Donation Extravaganza and Art Swap at the…
With a little help from James W. Loewen (author of, most notably, Lies My Teacher Told Me) and Howard Zinn (most famous for A People’s History of the United States), anyone can learn to distrust the way American history has been recorded and represented — from the point of view…
Before, if I wanted insight into the changing face of modern China, I had only to consult Peter Hessler, the keen-voiced journalist and Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker who digs right into the character of the nation by pitching his tent among its everyday people to write books like…
Just in time for both Halloween and the fortieth anniversary of the film’s original release, the Bug Theatre is bringing the zombie classic Night of the Living Dead to the stage. Director Kris Hipps says she’s been a fan of the film since seeing it on afternoon creature features as…
