At today’s Colorado UFO Briefing in Civic Center Park, attendees won’t find any alien stickers or anal-probe T-shirts for sale. There will be no UFO balloons or Martian characters. And costumed space explorers won’t be speaking Klingon or showing off their Vulcan hand signals. If you’re looking for a circus,…
Even in the heat of summer, our fine Colorado Symphony Orchestra toils, but rest assured, the beat is more relaxed. Witness the CSO’s laid-back Summer Coffee Concerts, a pair of mid-morning performances of works chosen precisely because they won’t challenge lazy, listless summer listeners. And here’s the kicker: Free Peet’s…
Globeville, the bastion of the working class, boasts a weathered history that most of us don’t truly appreciate as we whiz past on I-70. A multicultural crossroads where Denver’s old Eastern European and new Hispanic communities met under a miasma of meatpacking haze and smelter smoke, the neighborhood defines the…
The Charles Sawtelle GNU Mountain Jam keeps getting better with age. The jam has seventeen years of history, proving that it can offer quality folk, bluegrass and jazz music, authentic Texas barbecue and thirst-quenching local microbrews while maintaining a community feel. The event’s also a fundraiser for KGNU, which can…
Round ’em up and moo ’em out. For years, Denver looked on enviously as other cities around the globe hosted CowParades — or simply stole the basic idea and asked local artists to decorate totemic symbols that celebrated their town. Some cities went for horses, some crabs, some cowboy boots…
A little taste of Steamboat Springs can be had right here in the Mile High City this month during the Steamboat Wine Festival Denver Wine Dinner series, a scrumptious pairing of top chefs from the mountain resort with some of our own Larimer Square toques. Tonight’s partnership features Samba Room…
There’s nothing better than imbibing high-quality wine — except maybe doing it while watching a display of high-quality fashion. Throughout the summer, on select Thursday evenings, the Riverfront Park Wine & Fashion Series will prove the compatibility of sunsets, runway-walking, wine-tasting and music at the Millennium Bridge Plaza in Riverfront…
Two weeks ago, a colleague insisted that Superman Returns isn’t the remake of the 1978 original, as I wrote, but a reinterpretation — its melancholic flip side. Where the Christopher Reeve model was pop art and a cool breeze, the Brandon Routh version is heavy and solemn, weighed down by…
It would be a mighty sweet thing to see M. Night Shyamalan as the great redemptive storyteller he clearly thinks he is — or as he portrays himself in those American Express commercials. Genuine yarn-spinning, even as a doomed ambition, is virtually extinct in American movies; what had been the…
Originally, Ward Serrill set out to make a documentary — and a short one, at that — about Bill Resler, an avuncular tax professor at the University of Washington who thought he knew enough about basketball to coach the girls’ team at Roosevelt High School in Seattle. Never mind that…
In the latest extravaganza from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, millions of dollars and long hours in the digital animation studios have produced…a photorealistic, computer-animated, generic American suburb! Location costs must be getting pretty damn expensive nowadays. As Monster House begins, we follow a leaf slowly descending on…
Tour pros and frustrated duffers alike love Harold Ramis’s classic 1980 golf comedy Caddyshack — thanks in large part to inspired turns by the late Rodney Dangerfield as a foul-mouthed, wisecracking plutocrat, and Chevy Chase as a playboy hacker who doesn’t bother keeping score on fairway or green. Set at…
I remember a friend once talking to me about a scene in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The melancholy nobleman Jaques has just joined his exiled fellows and is excitedly describing a recent encounter: “A fool, a fool, I met a fool in the forest.” In some of the most…
The Ballad of Baby Doe. Central City Opera is celebrating the fiftieth birthday of Douglas Moore’s famed piece with a lively, glowing production full of beautifully proportioned sets that look like Victorian Christmas cards, a talented, energetic ensemble and a cluster of glorious voices. The opera conjures up all the…
During the last decade or so, there has been increased interest in exploring the rich art history of Colorado, and Hugh Grant, director of Denver’s Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art, has been at the forefront of this movement, having acquired thousands of works by hundreds of artists who…
Something to Consider is a wonderful summer show filled with fresh-looking contemporary paintings and ceramic sculptures at Sandy Carson Gallery (760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-8585). I’m not sure the title means anything, but I am sure that the show is a knockout. Is it just me, or is Denver abstract…
The Armory Group. In a summer art calendar that’s uncharacteristically filled with significant exhibitions, The Armory Group: 40 Years has got to be one of the most important. The story begins back in 1966 in Boulder — specifically, in the fine-arts department at the University of Colorado. The title of…
Edison Force (Sony) Gritty cop stuff must write itself — just make sure everyone’s tough, corrupt, and talking like they stole Mickey Spillane’s thesaurus. Then cast Justin Timberlake. Screech! Employing the talented (at music) popster as a crusading journalist isn’t this lame flick’s worst flaw — merely the one you’ll…
The history of football videogames is one of adding layer upon layer of complexity. Tecmo Bowl, the first great football game, had just four plays to choose from. Fast-forward to the latest Madden, and it’s more like 400. The logical result of this evolution is Electronic Arts’ NFL Head Coach,…
The Best of She-Ra Princess of Power (Brentwood) Carnivale: The Complete Second Season (HBO) The Cavern (Sony) Clean (Palm) Don’t Move (Wellspring) An Early Frost (Wolfe) Flash Gordon: The Complete Series (Brentwood) The Incredible Hulk: The Complete First Season (Universal) Intimate Stories (New Yorker) Jack of All Trades: The Complete…
You might think it’s impossible for these sultry summer nights to get any hotter. But you’d be wrong, because this evening’s Hot Summer Nights Bachelor Auction will crank up the temperature several notches. Each of the fifteen participating eligible gentlemen will be auctioned off with a pre-planned date, ranging from…
Slipped into the summer movie season like acid into your happy meal, Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is a blockbuster of counter-programming. No matter that the dude from The Matrix is its star — or would be, if he weren’t half hidden under a thick swath of digital paint. Linklater’s…
