Top of the Pops

“You’ve paid your debt/Get up, you wreck/ And crawl out through the door/Love will return.” Elegant, gay, acerbic, pensive and hilarious, Ray Davies has always been an unlikely yet perfect rock star, a relic from the days when kids like me listened to Davies and the Kinks blast the inanely…

Liar, Liar

Denver comics Anthony “AD” Demmer and Akwame D say comedy is one of the oldest art forms in black history. For hundreds of years, laughter’s been a tool for healing and commenting on society. Just like the legendary Richard Pryor, the best comics are those willing to tell the truth…

Star Search

Today at 11 a.m., anywhere from fifty to a hundred local toddlers, tweens and teens will gather at Aurora’s Fletcher Plaza, 9898 East Colfax Avenue, to compete in Colorado’s cutest sober-karaoke contest. They will wear special costumes and Sunday dresses, sunglasses and colored hats, spit-shined sneakers and brand-new shirts, and…

Gaelic Gala

Generations of gene-swapping has rendered most of us ethnic mutts. Still, we all saw how those “Everyone Loves an Irish Girl” shirts at Urban Outfitters sold like last month’s Maxim, so we know you proud Gaelic lassies exist. Grab that special laddie and embrace your ancestry at the twelfth annual…

Fools’ Gold

The fact that 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was such a hit had much to do with viewers’ pre-launch expectations, which were approximately none. Who could have been blamed for thinking a Gore Verbinski-directed, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie based on a theme-park ride would proffer…

To Hell and Back

Just in time for its U.S. release, Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’s fierce docudrama, The Road to Guantanamo, received a giant shot of free publicity with the news in early June that three Arab inmates at the infamous detention center in Cuba — none of whom had officially been charged…

The Story of Ricky

The ultra-violent Hong Kong cult classic The Story of Ricky has lost none of its appeal since being released in 1992. If anything, the fighting exploits of a vengeance-seeking young prison inmate named Ricky Ho (Louis Fan) have begun to intrigue a new generation of fans. After all, who can…

Extra Innings

Cydney Payton’s name has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue because of the roster of 72 artists that she included in Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 — Present, the over-the-top spectacular currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (“Home Run,” June 22), the Center for Visual Art…

Matt ONeill

It seems like everyone has their own list of who should be in Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 — Present at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Center for Visual Art, the Gates Sculpture Triangle and the Carol Keller Project Space. I’ve even done my own roster, “Extra Innings,” on…

Sketches

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 of them all. The story begins back in 1966 in Boulder — specifically, in the fine-arts department at the University of Colorado…

The Art of History

Because I grew up in London, where the ghosts of Roman soldiers, Saxon traders, Renaissance poets, Victorian merchants, Cockney fishmongers, bishops and queens and kings and murdered princes whispered beneath the pavement, it took me a long time to acknowledge that there was any such thing as Colorado history –…

Mad About You

Love is hard to find. If you find anything — anything at all — remotely resembling it, you should hang on for dear life. Or at least take a long, thoughtful second look, no matter how absurd the thing seems initially or how tempted you are to cut and run…

Now Playing

The Caretaker. The setting is a grimy, one-room flat filled with papers, boxes and mismatched bric-a-brac. It’s an appropriate mole hole for sad, befuddled Aston, who thinks he’s good with his hands, tinkers constantly with a screwdriver and dreams about building a shed in the yard — but it also…

Back to the Blues

The blues captured the musical imaginations of many a young white pop star on either side of the Atlantic back in the ’60s, but somehow the British bluesers came out with the higher profile, while those stateside — many of them associated with Paul Butterfield or the Siegel-Schwall Band —…

Sunflowers in Bloom

Ruralites Bren Frisch and John Roberts take both farming and parenting more seriously than most. While they work the fields at their Longmont-area Sunflower Farm, they’re also active as foster and adoptive parents who recognize the value of farm life in rearing kids who’ve had a rough start. A few…

Cruella de Vogue

For an industry in decline, print journalism has done a fashion publicist’s job of staying in vogue, particularly among the more stylish of career-seeking college grads. Never mind telling these BlackBerry-toting eager beavers that even an unpaid gig in the field is as rare as a winning lottery ticket: The…

Recycled Steel

After all that, just…this? After all the anticipation, all the hype, all the product available on toy-store shelves and kiddie sections at bookstores, after all the promise that this would be the most super of Superman movies, all we get is just this…this…remake? Because let’s first call Superman Returns what…

Tribute to David Lynch

Tragic hipsters, unite! What could be a more effective antidote to the scourges of school’s-out joy and summer sunshine than a month-long tribute to David Lynch? Beginning Friday, June 30, Starz FilmCenter will present a series of five films by the celebrated creator of the groundbreaking TV series Twin Peaks…

Basis Loaded

Cydney Payton, the director and curator of Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, has really outdone herself with Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 – Present, her four-part paean to the art of our region. The first chapter in the blockbuster is on view at the MCA itself, where Payton has installed the…

Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 – Present

Of the four aspects of Cydney Payton’s marvelous Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 – Present, the part on view at the Carol Keller Project Space (1513 Boulder Street, 303-298-7554) is by far the edgiest. When I first heard that the Keller spot was part of the Decades extravaganza, I naturally…

Sketches

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 of them all. The story begins back in 1966 in Boulder — specifically, in the fine-arts department at the University of Colorado…

Flying at Half-Mast

An old woman lies dying as her son sits by the bedside. Tension vibrates between them. Each character offers a poetic monologue that feels a bit forced; when a playwright has someone gaze out above the heads of the audience and wistfully emote, the writing needs to be more powerful…