I still have unhappy memories of Menopause the Musical and the slightly less ghastly Hats! at the New Denver Civic Theatre — shows intended to be cheap to produce and expensive to attend, shows that found instant audiences by playing on the sentimentalities and self-delusions of middle-aged women. So I…
Beyond the Gates (Fox) Blade: House of Chthon (New Line) The Boss of It All (IFC) Boston Legal: Season Three (Fox) Brothers and Sisters: The Complete First Season (Buena Vista) Catherine Deneuve: Essentials (Wellspring) The Condemned (Lionsgate) Deliverance: Deluxe Edition (Warner Bros.) Family Guy: Volume Five (Fox) Flashdance: Special Collectors…
I have to admit, I spent almost the entire evening at the Aurora Fox either glancing at my watch or wondering why Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics had won a Pulitzer. It’s not that the concept isn’t terrific: The play is set at the turn of the last century…
I’ve said it before and hope to again: David Cronenberg is the most provocative, original and consistently excellent North American director of his generation. From Videodrome (1983) through A History of Violence (2005), neither Scorsese nor Spielberg nor even David Lynch has enjoyed a comparable run. A rhapsodic movie directed…
Until 2005, Richard Shepard’s was a lamentable direct-to-prop-plane filmography populated with such forgettable titles as Cool Blue, Oxygen, Mexico City and The Linguini Incident, the latter of which was a heist film most notable for pairing David Bowie and Buck Henry — and that’s not even a punchline. For a…
Just a guess here, but the majority of Amanda Bynes fans probably didn’t get most of the Shakespeare references in her As You Like It-inspired She’s the Man, so behold: This time she’s gone for something a bit more familiar with Sydney White. Originally titled Sydney White and the Seven…
In the first few minutes of Eastern Promises, the striking new thriller from David Cronenberg, a throat is sliced, a uterus hemorrhages, and a newborn baby, slimy and palpitating, emerges from the womb of its dead mother. None of which comes as much of a surprise from the maker of…
Fall in Colorado is solid gold, and with the aspens nearing their peak, this is an ideal day to Rush to the Gold. To help steer people to the most colorful sites, Colorado State Parks has devised eight trips that take drivers through a total of twenty state parks (out…
If your Dungeons & Dragons sessions just don’t have enough verisimilitude to satisfy your yearnings for the days of yore, head out to Red Rocks Community College, 13300 West Sixth Avenue in Lakewood, for the Fantasy Revel, a free event celebrating times gone by. Today from 10 a.m. to 4…
It used to be that charities and fundraising organizations would use kickball to appeal to former playground warriors nostalgic for their junior-high glory days. But with at least three respectable kickball leagues co-existing in Denver and fifty teams of ten-plus players signed up for today’s third annual Make-A-Wish Foundation Charity…
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns,” wrote George Eliot. Although Eliot’s childhood remains veiled in mystery, I have seen the house where she was born, and there’s a cheery garden plot…
Summer marks its end this weekend with the autumnal equinox — when the sun lies directly above the equator and, for all practical purposes, the day is the same length as the night. After this, the days become shorter, the air gets a chill, and we begin our preparations for…
Havana-born trumpeter Arturo Sandoval describes his latest release, Rumba Palace, as “Cuban music for today.” The album, which was just nominated for a Latin Grammy in the Best Latin Jazz Album category, is essentially an Afro-Cuban big-band disc with some polished arrangements by fellow Cuban Felipe Lamoglia (who also plays…
Many, many years ago, after the waters of the great flood covered the whole land and then receded, there lived a man named Ridjimiraril in the place we now call the Northern Territory in Australia. He lived there with his three wives — one wise, one jealous and one beautiful…
South Park animation director Eric Stough, who appears tonight as part of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s International Film Series, has known Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the former Coloradans at the heart of the cheerfully profane Comedy Central show, since long before they were Hollywood heavyweights. “Trey and…
Three years ago, Judy Elliott of Denver Urban Gardens was leading kids at Fairview Elementary School in a nutrition gardening program when a class of fifth-graders looked at the tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, chiles, onions and peppers growing under lights in their classroom and decided they wanted to do more. Outside…
What better validation of a life’s work than to get an award for not just one thing, but all the things you’ve cumulatively accomplished? That’s when I can finally say, “Ha, ha, Dad, where’s your lifetime-achievement thingy?” Of course, seven-time Tony Award winner Stephen Sondheim has probably done that at…
It usually occurs between ages nine and twelve. Dolls and action figures get pushed under the bed. Play dates become “hanging out.” Kung-fu grip finds other applications. And then there are individuals whose shelves are never cleared of pre-adolescent accoutrements. Semi-respectable titles like “hobbyist” and “collector” are cloaks that enable…
“Government officials often intrude on everyday choices that touch on drinking, smoking, moral matters and a bevy of other issues,” says David Harsanyi, who’ll speak tonight about his succinctly titled new book Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a…
When Robert Frank developed his Wall Street Journal column “The Wealth Report” into the non-fiction book Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, there was only one place for him to learn about serving the newly affluent: the Starkey International Institute of…
Kevin Larson is having a ball. After a six-year hiatus, Kevin Larson and a host of hip hosts have come together to throw the 2007 Platinum Ball, the town’s only black-tie gala geared toward thirty-somethings. The ball had disappeared along with Colorado’s economy, but over the past few years, that…
Twenty years ago, Verne Carlson was driving back to Colorado from South Dakota when he happened upon a tornado. He’d been driving beside what he thought was a “regular thunderstorm” when he saw the funnel cloud. “They’re just amazing to see,” he says. “When you’re up close to one, it’s…
