I’d just been dumped by my girlfriend of four years two months before New Year’s, 2003. We weren’t on speaking terms, but I’d seen her new boy driving her car with her giggling in the passenger seat a week before Christmas. I knew of no parties going down, since most…
1. Is it true that some religious sects observe New Year’s Day as the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision? Yes, but thankfully, not Catholics — as far as I know. (By the way, guys typically don’t remember their circumcisions because the procedure is done shortly after birth. This became standard practice…
Cinderella Man (Universal) Back in the Great Depression, boxing matches only cost a nickel, and the ring was uphill both ways. That’s the central message of this well-made if sappy bio of 1930s boxer Jim Braddock. Ron Howard’s direction and a stellar cast save the film from its one-dimensional characters…
In less than a decade, first-person shooters like Doom and Halo have grown from a niche genre to a cottage industry. Whether it’s our love for their immersiveness, competition, or just old-fashioned bloodlust, the popularity of FPS games shows no sign of waning. They’ve become so much of a draw,…
Dirty Love (First Look) Dragonball Movie Boxed Set (Funimation) Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner Bros.) Fun With Dick and Jane (1977) (Columbia/Tristar) The Future of Food (Cinema Libre) Gilbert Gottfried: Dirty Jokes (Image) God Save the Queen: Punk Rock Anthology (Music Video Dist.) Hellbound (Warner Bros.) He-Man…
As the 21st century gets under way, it seems more and more apparent that the quintessential art form of the era is photography — straightforward shots of exterior reality, photo-based methods (such as films, projections and videos) or the more conventional application of photographic technology in prints and paintings. I…
In the east half of Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200) is Peter Illig’s DIALOGUE: 21. Over the past decade, Illig has made a reputation creating contemporary representational paintings and drawings. Like other realists, he attempts to impart something new into the age-old tradition. In his case, he makes…
Andy Warhol’s Dream America. Hot on the heels of its smash hit, Chihuly, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center is presenting yet another blockbuster devoted to the work of a household name in contemporary art: Andy Warhol’s Dream America. The exhibition was curated by Ben Mitchell of Wyoming’s Nicolaysen Museum…
There’s a sad and bitter scene that occurred many years ago when my mother was dying of cancer that seems to illustrate precisely the conundrum at the heart of Edwin Sanchez’s Unmerciful Good Fortune. My mother was in the hospital, very close to the end, lying silent and shrunken in…
Even for good institutions, change is necessary. The Laird Williamson-Dennis Powers adaptation of A Christmas Carol has been staged by the Denver Center Theatre Company for the past fifteen years, and I’ve always enjoyed it. But the best shows can grow stale and tired over time, and it’s hard to…
Bug. At the beginning, Bug seems hyper-realistic. We’re shown a drink- and drug-addled woman, Agnes, living in a motel room, which we learn is on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. We have been here before. It is — among other things — Sam Shepard country. A quiet young man, Peter,…
If you’re a fan of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, all you need to know is this: Disney has done right by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s impossible to imagine it done much better, in fact. If you’re not a fan, perhaps you’re among…
Warner Bros. put $50 million into Syriana and allowed writer-director Stephen Gaghan as much time and travel as necessary to research and write his story. The company would be well advised to pony up a few extra bucks to provide film-goers with a flow chart that connects the myriad scattered…
It begins with a very literal cliffhanger. Five snowboarders — the best in their field, we’re told — are dropped off via helicopter atop an Alaskan mountain called 7601, imaginatively named for its height above sea level. Swooping aerial shots around the peak convince us that it’s steep, high and…
“Agony and beauty for us live side by side,” laments Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), the most successful geisha in Gion. You’ll know how she feels: Memoirs of a Geisha, as directed by Chicago’s Rob Marshall, is beautiful to look it, but when it comes to the dialogue and storytelling, agony just…
Close to a decade ago, at a comic book convention in Los Angeles, animator Peter Chung was asked by a fan if he’d ever consider allowing a live-action movie to be made based on his avant-garde MTV series Aeon Flux. Chung said he had no interest in such a thing,…
In his terrific new documentary Seamless, director Douglas Keeve provides a bizarre look at a contest cooked up by Vogue magazine and the Council of Fashion Designers of America to encourage the next generation of clothing designers. Although he proceeds straight-faced, Keeve seizes on some hilarious and touching incidents –…
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Fox) The pairing of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, both in real life and on celluloid, is so obvious as to be almost cartoonish. So even though both are better actors than they need to be, they perfectly belong in this goofy, explosiony world. Married assassins,…
If Hollywood wants to learn from the videogame industry — which outgrossed the box office last year — it should pay careful attention to Shadow of the Colossus, a game with the epic scale of a summer blockbuster but the emotional heart of an indie flick. Shadow is brought to…
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Empire) Caterina in the Big City (Empire) CSI: Five-Season Pack (Paramount) Death to the Supermodels (Columbia/Tristar) Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (Columbia/Tristar) Empire (Buena Vista) Family Guy: Volume 3 (Fox) Formula 17 (Strand) The Frighteners: Director’s Cut (Universal) The Hives: Tussles in Brussels (Universal Music)…
According to Museum of Contemporary Art director Cydney Payton, her current show, TRUSS THRUST: THE ARTIFICE OF SPACE, is the first large exhibit in the area dedicated exclusively to video art. I think she’s right, because while there have been any number of videos in group shows or solos, I…
Things are really taking shape over at 15th and Delgany streets in the Platte Valley, where a multi-family development of lofts and townhouses designed by Yong Cho and Catherine Mercer of Studio Completiva are well under way. Both of these projects are associated with the not-yet-started Museum of Contemporary Art…
