On a snowy morning a couple of weeks ago, the powers-that-be at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center announced that Denver’s David Owen Tryba Architects will build an addition on an adjacent spot immediately to the east of the beloved landmark. This will be no mean feat: The elegant modernist…
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center recently announced that a new wing by Denver’s David Owen Tryba Architects is to be appended to the magnificent John Gaw Meem building (see story, page 43). That same day, the institution also announced the acquisition of more than fifty pieces by Seattle glass…
Auditioning Gods, et al. Arvada Center curator Jerry Gilmore has organized a quartet of shows devoted to recent work by Colorado artists. In the lower galleries, Bryan Andrews presents Auditioning Gods, which continues the “fetem” sculpture series he’s been pursuing for years. These hand-carved wooden sculptures are an attempt to…
During intermission at Germinal Stage Denver a couple of years ago, Ed Baierlein was keeping watch over the lobby. “Look who’s here,” he said, his voice gentle. I turned and found Al Brooks standing behind me. Al smiled hugely, took my hand in both of his, and said something about…
A Bright Room Called Day. Tony Kushner, author of the brilliant Angels in America, clearly wrote A Bright Room Called Day in a state of agitation. Kushner sensed the blot of fascism spreading across America, and he drew an analogy — by no means original — between 1930s Germany and…
Written by Pulitzer-winning playwright Marsha Norman, The Holdup is a small, charming piece about the myth of the Old West — or rather, the passing of that myth — that comprises equal parts humor and melancholy. The play is set in 1914, in the high plains of New Mexico. It…
Dune: Extended Edition (Universal) On paper it sounds insane: A mammoth sci-fi epic directed by David Lynch, based on an intensely weird Frank Herbert novel about ecology and giant worms. What resulted was a flop that has yet to be remedied by multiple edits through the years. This disc includes…
Every fighting game needs a hook to stand out: Mortal Kombat has gore, Soul Calibur has weapons, Def Jam has hip-hop stars. And Dead or Alive? It has boobies. The DOA series — developed by Tecmo — made its name with a cast of fighters who look like pinups and…
Our top DVD picks for the week of January 31. Benny Hill: Complete and Unadulterated — The Hill’s Angels Years, Set Four (A&E) Billy Graham Presents: Gift Set (Fox) Bubble (Magnolia) Captains Courageous (1937) (Warner Bros.) Drake & Josh Go Hollywood (Paramount) Extreme Comedy Collection (Team America: World Police, Beavis…
The fifth edition of the local literary magazine, Copper Nickel, contains a real body of work: The new release, subtitled Hot Metal, rides on bodily themes, from the human kind to the divine sort, featuring works by an award-winning batch of local literati, including poets Aaron Abeyta, Aaron Anstett, Sheila…
No one has ever mistaken Rocky Balboa for an officer and a gentleman, but that’s just about what we get in the numbingly predictable and none-too-stirring Annapolis, an underdog-makes-good boxing movie stuffed inside what amounts to a U.S. Navy recruiting pitch, with a dash of Good Will Hunting tossed in…
With the release of The White Countess, the much-honored Merchant-Ivory canon is complete. The Bombay-born producer Ismail Merchant died in May 2005 at age 68, and whatever direction his longtime collaborator and life companion, director James Ivory, now chooses, the working partnership that gave us a dozen elegantly furnished period…
Here’s a wild theory: Maybe Memoirs of a Geisha didn’t do so well because we’ve been conditioned to think that Asian women painted white, far from being erotic fantasies, are actually the scariest freakin’ evil spirits in the universe. Think about it: Ringu, The Grudge, A Tale of Two Sisters…
There is evidently no limit to the sacrifices actors will make for their art. If you thought beautiful Charlize Theron went the distance by transforming herself into a bloated, scowling murderess for Monster, just wait till you and the kids get a load of Emma Thompson in the darkly amusing…
The big news about Bubble, the new film by director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Traffic), is the way it’s being released. Rather than opening first in theaters, then later on DVD and cable, Soderbergh and his producers have decided to do it all at once. Or so they thought. Turns…
What better time to hear the views of actual American combat soldiers rather than the rhetoric of the politicians who send them to war? In Boulder this week, three eye-opening documentaries — including one that’s rarely been seen since its 1972 release — will give voice to what the Pentagon…
Using plants and flowers as source material for artwork is definitely an old-timey pursuit whose roots (pardon the pun) go back to the dawn of the Greco-Roman era. Here we are in the 21st century, and many contemporary painters — not just realists — still draw inspiration from the ubiquitous…
There are lots of galleries on Santa Fe, but surely everyone will agree that the Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088) really stands out. Scottish-born owner Michael Burnett has made it happen by relentlessly putting on interesting shows. The current exhibit, HIDDEN NARRATIVE, fills the bill. In it, Burnett…
Auditioning Gods, et al. Arvada Center curator Jerry Gilmore has organized a quartet of shows devoted to recent work by Colorado artists. In the lower galleries, Bryan Andrews presents Auditioning Gods, which continues the “fetem” sculpture series he’s been pursuing for years. These hand-carved wooden sculptures are an attempt to…
I was sitting in the Ricketson Theatre during the first half of Jesus Hates Me, reasonably engaged but thinking that Wayne Lemon’s play really wasn’t as funny as advertised — although it was sort of funny now and then, sometimes even startlingly and unexpectedly funny, the kind of funny that…
Somewhere in the 1970s, we learned that women could like each other, that female friendship was precious, and that society’s insistence that women’s concerns were inherently more trivial than the concerns of men was blind and stupid. Though she might pass much of her time shopping or in the kitchen,…
A Bright Room Called Day. Tony Kushner, author of the brilliant Angels in America, clearly wrote A Bright Room Called Day in a state of agitation. Kushner sensed the blot of fascism spreading across America, and he drew an analogy — by no means original — between 1930s Germany and…
