“After years of people in Denver saying, ‘God, we wish we could hear you guys,’ and people going to absurd lengths to wrap wires around their houses to pick up our signal, or driving their car and parking on a certain spot on a hill to hear a program, we…
A young boy stripped of his birthright by a cruel and avaricious uncle sets out to gain the magical powers that will allow him to reap vengeance. Armed with black magic, he returns and kills his uncle and his uncle’s family. In a typical Hollywood film, the movie would end…
The only thing I’ve ever done that was remotely cowboy-like was ride a horse one terrifying afternoon in college. His name was Tank, and he tried tossing me into a body cast. Of course, I showed that big bastard a thing or two (mostly about what real fear sounds like)…
One man, one woman (or choose the gender match of your choice), a ring and a kiss: It all seems so simple, and yet it isn’t. These days, when you commit to marriage, you commit to weeks of intensive planning for a blowout that ostensibly happens only once in your…
Nick Sugar, who’s directing The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged), concedes that “there are liberties taken” in this comic adaptation of the ultimate bestseller, which opens tonight. And that’s an understatement of biblical proportions. Appropriately, the extravaganza begins with Earth’s creation and concludes with a number called “Armageddon:…
Remember sitting at your mother’s vanity when you were little and playing with all of her pretty potions and beautifully arranged cosmetics? Yeah, neither do I. My mom always had a drawer full of half-used eyeshadows, blushes and lipsticks thrown haphazardly together. And I haven’t done much better, as most…
1. Balls of Fury is a movie about: A) A former table-tennis prodigy (Dan Fogler as Randy Daytona) enlisted by the FBI to infiltrate the underground Ping-Pong tournament of a legendary Chinese criminal (Christopher Walken). B) Suppository jokes. C) Little worth discussing and even less worth seeing. D) All of…
Leonardo DiCaprio wants you to know that we are in serious trouble. No amount of artful chin stubble, it seems, will reverse the depletion of fossil fuels or help to slow population growth. Not even three Oscar nominations will save you; without an actual statuette, there’s nothing to wedge under…
It is as you’ve always suspected: Rob Zombie’s house is way cooler than yours. For one thing, the punk/metal god turned filmmaker has a twelve-foot stuffed polar bear in his living room. (Zombie to dumbstruck interviewer: “I know, right? How fuckin’ big is that bear?”) The bear presides over dozens…
By late summer, when director James Wan’s Death Sentence is playing side-by-side with Neil Jordan’s The Brave One at many of our nation’s multiplexes, movie-goers will be forgiven for thinking that they’ve traveled through a time warp and landed in the late 1970s, when first-class cinemas and seedy grindhouses alike…
At the opening-night performance of The Little Mermaid, I saw a little girl perched on a booster seat, ecstatically dancing her upper body to the big numbers; in the row behind me, a pair of sisters waved their small sparkly shoes. At intermission, wide-eyed boys wandered the corridors in adorable…
In Craig Lucas’s Prelude to a Kiss, Peter and Rita meet cute and proceed to have one of those idiosyncratic, charming conversations that invariably herald on-stage love — except that this conversation has points of real shadow and light. Soon after discovering that she has a passion for social justice,…
All in the Timing. David Ives’s six one-acts are all about language, communication and understanding, and also chance and fate. The dialogue is light and funny and fizzy, and it gets your frontal lobes buzzing as you attempt to catch and process all the flying puns, allusions, jokes, rhythms and…
The Sandra Phillips Gallery, situated about halfway between El Noa Noa and the Sandy Carson Gallery on the 700 block of Santa Fe Drive, is a little hard to see as you drive by. Even on foot, the quaint little storefront is easy to miss from the sidewalk. Once inside,…
Denver printmaker Diana Vavra Strong died on July 24 after a nearly twenty-year battle with cancer. Vavra Strong was most active as an artist in the 1960s and ’70s, so until recently, her work was known mostly to a handful of old-timers. Last year, Kirkland Museum director Hugh Grant mounted…
The American Landscape and Carny. Rule Gallery has typically presented single solos since landing in its new space several months ago, but this time, there are two different shows in that long and narrow sales room. The two work well together, though, as both are made up of photographs about…
Year of the Dog (Paramount Vantage) It’s just about the First Commandment of Hollywood: Don’t kill the dog. So it’s a testament to the clout of writer-director Mike White (School of Rock) that killing off the dog is the first of many rules broken in this weird-ass movie. Folks fooled…
The next-gen consoles are sexy as hell, but it’s not all bad being the reigning “last-gen” champ either. With more than 100 million PlayStation 2 consoles sold, software companies can afford to be a little adventurous — after all, even if their game appeals to only 1 percent of that…
Bob Saget: That Ain’t Right (HBO) The Boris Karloff Collection (St. Clair) Broken English (Magnolia) Carlito’s Way: Crime Saga Collection (Universal) Dark Shadows: The Beginning (MPI) The Essential Ozzie & Harriet Collection (Mill Creek) Friday Night Lights: The First Season (Universal) Gideon’s Trumpet (Acorn) Heaven & Hell: Live From Radio…
I like the simple pleasures in life. A day off from work, girls, beer and rock and roll are some of my very favorite things. How fortuitous, then, that Panties at the Bar is happening tonight at 3 Kings Tavern, 60 South Broadway. From 9 p.m. on, Fanny and Kitty,…
Every decade or so boasts a local scene with bands to watch and a camaraderie heated by bouts of drinking, smoking, dancing and shouting in one another’s ears about social change and that girl sitting next to you, isn’t she hot? A rite of passage for every generation, the scene…
First, a confession: After a dozen books, I was getting a little tired of Father John O’Malley and his obsession with the mission on the Wind River Reservation (although I could certainly appreciate his love of that rugged Wyoming landscape), not to mention his obsession with Indian attorney Vicky Holden,…
