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…
Eat your words. That’s the mantra of the Book Arts League’s seventh annual Edible Book Show and Tea, being held today at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 1750 13th Street in Boulder. On display will be the artistic and culinary talents of local authors and artisans who crafted books…
The jazz vocalist was about as cool as the jazz accordion in the post-bop heyday of the ’50s and ’60s, but singers such as Abbie Lincoln, Nina Simone and Andy Bey loaned human faces and voices to that decade of avant-garde abstraction. And Bey is still keeping it real. After…
John Ashton, who’s directing a new production of Insignificance, doesn’t much like Nicholas Roeg’s 1985 film version of the play, which imagines a meeting of individuals who bear a striking resemblance to Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio and Senator Joseph McCarthy. “I hated Theresa Russell’s rendition of Marilyn,” he…
You may not yet have lost your ardor and respect for the pressure-point hammerblow Quentin Tarantino executed on American movies, but it’s difficult at this late date not to view him as an imperative inoculation with unfortunate side effects: gas, bloating, dizziness, delusions of cleverness. Imitators flock when coolness seems…
Calling Rian Johnson’s teen indie-drama Brick a piece of stuntwork might seem tantamount to hitting it with a pie, but it’s a high-speed wheelie of a strangely daring variety. Try this thumbnail definition on for size: a high school noir complete with a Dashiell Hammett-derived plot line and a fearless…
It’s difficult to tell from the image on the poster for Take the Lead, but that’s not star Antonio Banderas dancing in blue silhouette. In fact, the movie isn’t even about Banderas dancing — it’s about Banderas teaching teenagers to dance. You’d think that might be a dream come true…
We’ve all done it — killed an afternoon drinking in a pleasantly grungy roadhouse somewhere, boozily enjoying the illusion of having fallen off the grid, playing semi-forgotten blues songs on an outdated jukebox and thinking aloud, See, I should capture this feeling. This should be a movie. Sobered up, we…
The raunchy cult favorite Unholy Rollers (1972) features gorgeous Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings as the rebellious star of a Roller Derby team that’s amply stocked with resentful teammates and bitter rivalries. The heroine’s good looks and singleminded pursuit of fame make her a target at every game, and it isn’t…
Some thirty years ago, Foothills Art Center in Golden established Colorado Clay as an annual juried exhibit to highlight ceramics being done in the state. But Jenny Cook, the center’s director, has decided to make the exhibit a biennial so she can open up the schedule for new programming. Colorado…
More often than not, members of the city’s art co-ops are not youngsters fresh out of art school, but established artists who’ve shown their work around here for years. This is true not only of the old-line spots, but also in the case of the newer ones, such as Sliding…
