April 15 can be depressing. Even if tax day means getting a decent return, you still know that the government is spent a good portion of your money on programs you’d rather not support. Ah, but that’s democracy. Change your outlook by stopping at the Mercury Cafe tonight for the…
In Nicole Holofcener’s first feature, 1996’s Walking and Talking, the writer-director warmly portrayed an adult female friendship, nudging at emotional issues without resorting to shtick or melodrama. Five years later, Holofcener’s Lovely and Amazing attempted to do the same for a family of women, but with wildly different results: Virtually…
Countless are the creative souls who struggled with mental illness, as are the novels and films dedicated to them. Again and again, we’ve encountered artists both inspired and undermined by their madness, whose torment and tumult produce works of beauty and depth. So can a documentary about a singer-songwriter and…
Perhaps it’s just the inner drama geek talking, but there’s something extremely compelling about seeing hardened felons preparing to put on a classic play with the enthusiasm of giddy schoolgirls. Like many of us, these violent men undoubtedly considered Shakespeare highbrow and stuffy in the outside world, but in attempting…
Believe it or not, The Benchwarmers is so lame that it can’t even lay claim to being the best Adam Sandler-produced movie not screened for critics in 2006; that dubious honor would go to Grandma’s Boy, which was by no means good, but at least featured a kung-fu chimp and…
Tired of the same old multiplex? Last Friday, the Harkins Northfield 18 at Stapleton opened for business, offering Denver movie-goers the largest single screen in the state and a sound system that rivals the most muscled-up rock-concert venue. The centerpiece of the new eighteen-theater house is something called the Cine…
Though my workaday life is filled with the high-minded pursuit of looking at exhibitions, I do have more than a few guilty pleasures. I love Peeps, for example, those marshmallow chicks rolled in yellow sugar available this time of year. I also love muscle cars from the ’60s and ’70s…
Skyline Park, which runs along Arapahoe Street between 15th and 18th streets, was once a world-class example of modernist landscape design. It was created in 1970 by Lawrence Halprin and featured a multi-level topography created with cast-in-place concrete planters, berms and fountains. Now it’s a ho-hum kind of place, as…
Building Outside the Box. With the Denver Art Museum’s outlandish Hamilton Building by Daniel Libeskind taking shape at West 13th Avenue and Acoma Plaza, there’s a lot going on outside the place. Inside the gorgeous Gio Ponti tower, it’s a different story. Up until the opening of the Hamilton next…
The first act of Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House is about as perfect a piece of theater as I can imagine. On a stunningly evocative, elegantly gray-and-white set, with cool, beautiful lines and an abstract but vaguely human-looking sculpture lurking in the background, Matilde cleans house for a pair of…
Private Eyes is a very smart play. For a while I tormented myself trying to decipher the plot, but I couldn’t do it. Some critics have compared the story to a set of nested Russian figures, but I think it’s more like a drawing by M.C. Escher. An event makes…
Impulse Theater. Basements and comedy go together like beer and nuts or toddlers and sandboxes. The basement of the Wynkoop Brewing Co., where Impulse Theater performs, is crowded, loud and energetic. Impulse does no prepared skits, nothing but pure improv — which means that what you see changes every night,…
With scrappy warblers like Kellie Pickler and Bucky Covington trying to out-twang each other on American Idol, country music is hotter than a corn dog at a county fair. One reason is that almost anybody can sing it. Even mopes who argue that NASCAR isn’t a real sport have been…
Ellie Parker (Strand) This extremely raw portrait of an actress trying — and failing — to make it in Hollywood showcases Naomi Watts in a wrenching and sympathetic performance. Writer-director Scott Coffey shot the movie over nearly six years, beginning in 1999, before Watts was a household name. Though they…
Caved In: Prehistoric Terror (Lions Gate) The Dark (Sony) Death Cab for Cutie: Directions (Atlantic) Deep Blue (Miramax) Dora the Explorer: Dora’s First Trip (Paramount) 18 Fingers of Death (MCA) The Greatest Game Ever Played (Disney) Laugh or I’ll Shoot Collection: The Naked Gun, Airplane!, and Top Secret! (Paramount) The…
Jeff Sorenson loves to grow things, and his sister, Kristy, loves to sell growing things. She also has a knack for building a rustic trellis out of fresh-cut willow boughs or putting together a miniature fairy garden using the delicate ground covers and diminutive topiary trees her brother nurtures to…
Go around the world in two hours today at Storyteller Sunday at the Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon Boulevard, where a special program will feature three mouthy babes from across the globe exercising their vocal cords and anecdotal flair. Cathryn Wellner crosses the border from Canada and has worked for…
Like many a young independent filmmaker trying to get a foot in the door, Eric Ayotte felt disenfranchised. It’s not an easy life, he learned, and you just have to make your own way through the muck. But he took his future into his own hands and started the ragtag…
The commercial art of Alan Forbes is like the airbrushed graphics on the cabs of semis: flamed and emblazoned with images of fast poker hands and faster women. The Black Crowes’ black crow was his first big contribution to the lowbrow art world, and he has since created imagery for…
Although early April weather conditions can be iffy, it’s worth braving any showers to hit First Friday. There’s a lot happening this month, but here are a few of the don’t-miss highlights: In the RiNo art district, eight artists working in eight diverse media are banding together at Orange Cat…
Get on the make tonight at Rising Up!, the town’s monthly theme party where cats and chicks resurrect the ’60s like Jesus on Easter Sunday. Tonight’s installment, dubbed the Rolling Blackout Revue, takes variety to dizzying hipster heights with host Sir Ralston Purina and musical performances by Everything Absent or…
As if it weren’t enough to be a leading scholar of antique Asian textiles, Londoner Linda Wrigglesworth is also a designer whose elegantly tailored art-to-wear fashions — inspired by Chinese imperial costumery of the Qing Dynasty — are nothing short of gorgeous. Wrigglesworth and fellow expert Gary Dickinson will be…
