Kicking & Screaming might be the most predictable movie of the year, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Think about it: How many times have you gone to a movie and gotten far less than you were expecting? Here that’s not a concern: You may not get more than…
It won’t ruin anyone’s experience of 3-Iron, the new film by Korean writer/director Kim Ki-duk, to reveal that it closes with a single epigraph: “It’s hard to tell that the world we live in is either reality or a dream.” Presumably, the correct translation would replace “that” with “whether”; even…
The Starz FilmCenter’s wide-ranging Global Lens 2005 series, which continues through May, features new films from such exotic climes as Uruguay, China, Turkey, Algeria, Bosnia, Mali and, if the rumors are true, North Dakota and Nebraska. This week, the two features on view will be Lili’s Apron, a comic parable…
As an ever-evolving lexicon, the Oxford English Dictionary regularly adds words and phrases that have found their way into heavy rotation in the current vernacular. Recent additions to the OED include “supersize,” “e-learning” and “spyware.” When the next round of updates rolls around, I would not be surprised to find…
Thursday, May 12 Tie, tux and…high-tops? That’s the ticket at the annual Sneakers Ball gala, a benefit for the Attention Homes emergency youth shelter. This year’s theme, “Kitschy Loungewear With Swanky Sneakers,” will have lounge lizards slinking out of the woodwork at the Boulder Theater, 2032 14th Street in Boulder,…
When a prestigious convention comes to Denver, public officials usually fall all over themselves to welcome the group — particularly when media outlets from across the country are covering the event. But while there will be plenty of falling all over when the Modern Drunkard Convention pours into Denver this…
THURS, 5/12 Meet Murray, a teacup Chihuahua with a tiny, quivering nose, bat ears and deep, mooning eyes that could launch a thousand Keene portraits in a single wink. He greets you with his sliver of a tail tucked daintily between matchstick legs and tender pussywillow paws, looking jaunty, if…
WED, 5/18 Okay, I admit it: I love car-heist and race-car movies. That’s my chick flick. Gone in 60 Seconds? Angelina Jolie and Nicolas Cage — c’mon, what’s not to love? The Fast and the Furious? Fast cars, fast music — again, what’s not to love? Well, yes, the scripts,…
FRI, 5/13 “My characters are really, really simply drawn,” Todd Goldman says of his art. “Simply drawn” is putting it mildly; Goldman’s bright, basic cartoon style makes Keith Haring look like Caravaggio. But there’s no denying the power of that simplicity: Over the past few years, Goldman has turned his…
THURS, 5/12 Cherry Creek Shopping Center has pretty, posh potties. The lovely latrines that were once cited by the Chicago Tribune as the reason for the mall’s successful bottom line are celebrated in Shaking the Dew From the Lilies, opening tonight at 8 p.m. at the Playwright Theatre, 2119 East…
Bobbi Walker, owner and director of Walker Fine Art, has worked hard to break into the top ranks of Denver’s contemporary galleries and, at the same time, make a profit. I can’t comment on how it’s possible to make money in the art business, but I can say that Walker’s…
t’s amazing that in the current art world — where it seems like everyone is searching for the next outrageous irony — good, old-fashioned representational painters are still going strong, as evidenced by Contemporary Realism, at the William Havu Gallery (1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360). Come to think of it, that’s…
Chihuly. Michael De Marsche, president of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, has orchestrated the extravaganza Chihuly, a sprawling survey of the career of glass master Dale Chihuly. Working near Seattle, Chihuly is among the best-known glass artists of all time, right up there with Louis Comfort Tiffany and Paolo…
The first scene of The Crimson Thread, currently showing at the Arvada Center, is somewhat promising, though it does have a bit of that golden-sunlight, Hallmark-card feeling about it. Mary Hanes’s writing is lyrical but rarely revelatory. The year is 1869. Two sisters, Eilis and Bridget, are talking on the…
In the last few years, Bas Bleu has become a beacon of theatrical inventiveness and energy in Fort Collins. Play selection is always intelligent and sometimes daring, and execution is usually exemplary. The company began this season with an ambitious endeavor: In conjunction with Openstage, they presented Angels in America…
Cyrano. The trouble with Heritage Square’s Cyrano is that the company has abandoned the hybrid style that’s all its own — one that involves wild improvisation and lots of audience participation — and decided instead to play the story of the long-nosed wit and fighter who’s afraid to reveal his…
Whatever you do, don’t accuse Ridley Scott of turning his back on a fight. Doesn’t matter if it’s slimy-fanged space aliens attacking Sigourney Weaver, Roman slaves in tough against hungry lions down at the Colosseum, or American GIs going at it with Somali insurgents. Sir Ridley is always happy to…
Much of Crash, an L.A.-stories portmanteau about the suffocating embrace of racism, is hard to watch, harder still to listen to. Its characters — creations of co-writer and director Paul Haggis who could also live next door to and perhaps even inside of you — say and do things they…
It is no great joy to review Palindromes, the latest film from writer-director Todd Solondz, who is loved by those who do not loathe him for such movies as Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness and Storytelling. Advance word deemed Palindromes Solondz’s most shocking film, which seemed impossible given its predecessors…
The new House of Wax — a remake, pretty much in name only, of the 1953 Vincent Price movie (itself a remake of a 1933 film) — manages to be gruesome and grisly, but it falls well short of being truly creepy, much less terrifying. Horror aficionados expecting the chills…
Almost no one save Vladimir Putin and a few stubborn ex-Red Army generals laments the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the remnants of that vast failed experiment look more and more these days like items from Ripley’s Believe It or Not. That may be the spirit in which to…
After Michael Conti got laid off from his job at Intel in 2002, he found himself with plenty of time on his hands. Inspired by a friend who habitually wrote a haiku every month, Conti decided to return to his roots and dedicate his time to making one short movie…
