Legs to Spare

The Graduate: 40th Anniversary Edition (MGM) Fifteen years after its last home-video commemorative edition (extras from which appear here), The Graduate once more gets the bonus-laden makeover — and if ever a movie deserved its kudos, it’s Mike Nichols’ masterwork. That said, the movie is its own bonus; not since…

Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week

Andre Rieu: Live in New York (Denon) Away From Her (Lionsgate) Bones: Season Two (Fox) Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (HBO) Casper Meets Wendy: Family Fun Edition (Fox) Charmed: The Final Season (Paramount) DOA: Dead or Alive (Weinstein) Ever Again (Starz) Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes — Volume Two…

Atlas Drowned

Typically, first-person shooters are a lot like virtual shooting galleries: Great fun, yes, but not exactly thought-provoking. So it’s nice when an FPS comes along that’s trying to be something more — and even better when it actually succeeds. Sometimes you know it in the first few minutes. Take Half-Life:…

Red, White and Dreamy

Soviet socialist realism meets dada at the birth of America for a look at the “founding father” myth in the Komar & Melamid: American Dreams exhibition. The show features eight large paintings and a series of forty works on paper that recast strikingly familiar patriotic imagery of both the U.S…

Off to See the Wizard

“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to do a show with works taking whimsical ideas from The Wizard of Oz, or abstracting ideas from The Wizard of Oz — just using it as a starting point for inspiration?” says Kim Harrell of East End Applied Arts. Fun, indeed: Harrell’s idea…

Shred the Love

Counting the days until the flurries fly? The fashion industry does a little slope-sharing tonight at Sideways Riders, where Essentials Clothing plans to lip-slide into fall by launching a sneak peek of its winter line at Vinyl nightclub. The snow and skate garb gurus have teamed up with FashionDenver to…

Good Woman

“Amy Goodman is a goddess,” enthuses KGNU’s Joanne Cole, “and she is a real journalist in a day when there are very few, and she is a tireless journalist on top of that, and we are so thrilled to have her here.” And you should be, too: The host of…

Silly Symphony

J.S. Bach hasn’t topped the charts at Amazon or iTunes recently. “Frankly, if we don’t start doing something, we are going to lose our classical-music audience in future generations,” says Jennie Doris, a Boulder musician and writer. So she and her colleagues are injecting a little David Sedaris into their…

Big Beliefs

This I believe. I’ve been listening to NPR long enough to appreciate those words and smile when I hear them, because I know someone is about to move or inspire me, or maybe just make me laugh. Bill Gates believes that “the power of creativity and intelligence can make the…

Solid Sisterhood

World War III has not yet happened. But a war rages in the heart of Africa that’s killed as many civilians as World War II. Dubbed the African World War, it’s allowed usurpers to strip the resource-rich nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo under the auspices of battle. Even…

Support Your Local Hooker

I played college rugby for Humboldt State in northern California. When this comes up in conversation, people are taken aback. I watch their expressions as they think, “She seemed so mild-mannered, but really, she’s a barbarian!” I treasure those moments. Nobody messes with an ex-rugger. And Colorado is a rugby…

Kong Fu

The fastest person in the world. The most career home runs. The best Donkey Kong player of all time. These achievements may seem inconsequential to outsiders, but to the people who pursue them, they can mean everything. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters follows the heated rivalry between…

Apocalypse Anticipation

Since the beginning of time, human beings have been predicting the end of the world. It’s easy to ignore the crazy man on the corner shouting about Armageddon, but the ancient Mayan civilization — with its freaky-accurate calendar and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems — is a bit more difficult…

Jersey Boys

Because the Colorado Rockies are playing meaningful games in September for the first time in recent memory, they don’t need gimmicks to attract fans, as they have in years past. Fortunately, though, the team’s going forward with one of its best promotions: Jersey Off Their Backs Day, which takes place…

A Different Time

Isn’t it unusual that war buddies can get together — with nary a paraplegic or alcoholic — and dance to show tunes under the radar of suspicion? As out-of-place as it seems in a time of tsunami-level cynicism, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is just such a story. Warming the stage…

Think Green

Although it’s not exactly revolutionary to hold a major environmental event in a town already known for its eco-friendly vibe, Boulder’s Eco Arts ’07 is impressive for its length and scope. It brings together artists, scientists and scientific organizations to cover a range of global-warming issues and examine how the…

Two of a Kind

Take Two: Film and Its Inspirations, a new series starting tonight at the Denver Art Museum, has an inspiration of its own: Inspiring Impressionism, currently on display at the DAM. “The concept of Inspiring Impressionism is to show the influence of Old Master portraits and landscapes on the great Impressionist…

The Vibrators

Like their contemporaries in U.K. Subs, who lived in the same building, the seasoned pub musicians who formed the Vibrators in 1976 brought a blues tradition to the infantile punk scene. But while the scene was highly politicized and angry, the Vibes got their kicks from sexually charged fun; tunes…

The Used

In the video for “Pretty Handsome Awkward,” an entertaining track from Lies for the Liars, the latest CD by the Used, bassist Jeph Howard dons drag — and he believes he pulls off the look pretty well. As he points out, “I think I could fit in on Santa Monica…

Art in the City Afterhours Party

The First Friday gallery extravaganza is tonight, and if you have a tendency to arrive on Santa Fe a little late to get your fill of cutting-edge art and culture, as I do, this time you have an excuse to get started late. Art in the City will hold a…

3:10 to Yuma

Huffing and puffing to resuscitate a long-moribund genre, James Mangold manages to imbue a fifty-year-old Western with the semblance of life. Mangold’s remake of 3:10 to Yuma isn’t as startling a resurrection job as his Johnny Cash biopic, but it does send a saddlebag full of Western tropes skittering into…

Shoot ‘Em Up

There have already been critical rumblings about the extreme violence in Shoot ¹Em Up, but it’s hard to get too worked up about a film whose very title announces its maker’s intent. You just can’t stay mad at a picture that early on has the hero helping a woman give…