And so, once more, the googolplex emits the stink of the network rerun, this week offering yet another worthless big-screen take on small-screen detritus. While Hollywood wonders (cries, actually, over spilt spoiled milk) why audiences are staying away from theaters — offering theories that range from the absence of such…
Once you get past its negligible plot, scant dialogue and almost zero action, Gus Van Sant’s elliptical rendering of the final hours in the troubled life of a grunge musician is rarely boring. That may seem like a backhanded compliment, but, given the absence of such customary cinematic conventions as…
The zombie king, George Romero, has got to love Shaun of the Dead. In Edgar Wright’s witty 2004 sendup of the ghouls-on-the-loose genre, we meet a pair of North London layabouts who are a lot more concerned with scoring their next pint of bitter than with saving the world from…
Some think it’s ironic that young practitioners of graffiti — a stealth art form that’s as stylized as it is free-spirited — often end up working as commercial illustrators. One of the genre’s biggest names, Shepard Fairey, proudly sticks up posters by night dissing the very capitalists for whom he…
Thursday, August 4 If the idea of Chautauqua performances leave you cold, maybe you just have the wrong impression of them. The scholarly dramatizations of historic figures don’t always have to resurrect a bunch of old moldies from the distant past; for proof, look no further than the High Plains…
James Brown may have been right when he said this is a man’s world: Social scientists have long postulated that we might well live in a less war-torn, ego-crazed culture if women, rather than old, trigger-happy white dudes, were in charge. And though it’s a long way from world domination,…
FRI, 8/5 “You don’t need twenty thousand dollars to start an art collection with one piece,” says Charmain Schuh of Boulder’s Dairy Center for the Arts. “If you can’t afford the original paintings, like with Warhol, you can always have them in your collection through the print media. Printmaking is…
SAT, 8/6 At 9 a.m. this morning at Colorado Gators in Mosca, GatorFest X will commence, and we all know what that means: It’s the tenth anniversary of the biggest, baddest alligator rodeo in the state. What exactly is planned at this enterprise seventeen miles north of Alamosa? Live music…
FRI, 8/5 Most people in this country don’t equate Canada with the word “exotic.” But risqué Canadian dance troupe Fluffgirl Burlesque hopes to turn up the heat on any chilly notions of our friends to the north. Fluffgirl founder and performer Cecilia Bravo started producing sold-out burlesque shows in her…
SUN, 8/7 To Fara Tolno, tradition is everything. Born in the former French colony of Guinea, he’s spent most of his life dedicated to preserving his homeland’s rich heritage, touring the world as both a teacher and a living embodiment of West African performance arts. Tonight at 8 p.m. at…
Twelfth Night begins with the lovestruck Count Orsino ordering up music to match his pleasurably melancholy mood. When his “If music be the food of love, play on” is answered by cheerful calypso sounds and he proceeds to practice a few dance steps, you know you’re in the hands of…
The Full Monty. The Full Monty follows a group of men who are out of work in Buffalo, New York. Amazed to discover that the women of the town are willing to pay high prices to watch a Chippendale-style strip show, the men decide they have nothing to lose and…
The last few months have been pretty tough for the Center for Visual Art, the LoDo mini-museum operated by Metropolitan State College of Denver. In a shocking move this past spring, the school’s Republican-dominated board of trustees cut the center’s funding in half (“New Directions,” May 5). No surprise there:…
There’s a funky new art spot in town that has the ridiculous name of Rhinoceropolis (3553 Brighton Boulevard, no phone). The venue recently opened in the old Wheelbarrow space, another funky art spot with a ridiculous name that closed some time ago. Like its predecessor, Rhinoceropolis is held together with…
2005 Biennial BLOW OUT. This is the third in a series of biennials presented at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. In the past, participation in these biennials was limited to artists from around here; for the 2005 version, it’s been expanded to include artists working in most of the Western…
If the Navy is looking for splashy recruiting tools, it could do worse than Stealth, a zillion-dollar action movie stuffed with futuristic jet fighters, glamorous carrier pilots and an overload of explosive (mostly digital) derring-do. Here is Top Gun revised and updated, complete with a new array of enemies –…
Hit me,” Mark Zupan says — begs, actually, like a kid clamoring for a new toy. “I’ll hit you back.” He means it, too, and his ripped pecs and buzzed scalp and tattooed back and arms and bushy gangster goatee promise just as much menace. The dude’s bad and doesn’t…
Toward the end of Saraband, the uneven new film from legendary director Ingmar Bergman, a character sits down with his daughter, a taut girl who is obviously undergoing emotional distress. “I have the feeling that some sort of discussion is coming on,” he says. Indeed it is — as it…
Remember the scene in X2 where Wolverine grabs a Dr Pepper and enlists the aid of Iceman to make it cold? Take the tone of that scene and stretch it out to feature length, and you’ve got Sky High, a less angsty, more kid-friendly movie about teenagers attending a school…
Must Love Dogs, it should be clearly stated, is not the greatest romantic comedy ever made about a quirky couple who meet at a dog park. That honor goes to Dog Park, the oddball 1998 flick starring Luke Wilson and Natasha Henstridge, written and directed by former Kids in the…
The Flashback Wednesdays series at the Regency Tamarac Square is a movie nostalgiaphile’s delight, not least because the fare tends to go easy on the cerebral cortex while providing a maximum of entertainment value. That’s the appeal of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Amy Heckerling’s terrific 1982 feature about Southern…
Mike Miles tried to be the change in last year’s U.S. Senate race, but he was thwarted in his effort by Colorado attorney general Ken Salazar. Advocates of the Fountain-based educator and former military man are keeping his spirit — and campaign slogan — alive, however, with Be the Change…
