Better Times, et al. Contemporary painter Evan Colbert has been successfully riffing on minimalism, pop art and conceptualism for the last several years — and he’s not about to stop now. Among his most interesting pieces are those in which he creates a color field based on paint chips and…
Always…Patsy Cline. AlwaysPatsy Cline is a light, mildly entertaining evening. You get an efficiently evocative set that’s divided into three parts: a down-home apartment; an old-fashioned country bar, complete with jukebox; and, in the center, the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. There are two skilled singer-performers, one of them…
Our best movies of the year may actually have been anything but the best to a few of our critics: Such is the dilemma of offering employment to writers of dissenting opinion. In other words, the No. 1 film of 2004 wasn’t universally heralded by our team of Bill Gallo,…
The Gospel According to Mel Who needs studio publicists when every fundamentalist pastor in the country is herding his flock to the multiplex? Why waste good money on TV spots when the Vatican is handing out rave reviews? No doubt about it, Thomas, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ…
While Michael Moore and Mel Gibson garnered most of this year’s critical attention, plenty of fine films opened to little or no fanfare. Following are our reviewers’ favorite movies that didn’t draw the adulation they deserved. Consider yourself armed for the next trip to Blockbuster. Control Room. In a year…
Leave it to those rock stars at National Public Radio to show us how to throw down on New Year’s Eve. This year, NPR will celebrate not only the arrival of 2005, but also the 25th anniversary of its Toast of a Nation show. Friday night’s twelve-hour program of jazz,…
Thursday, December 30 New Year’s Eve out on the town, with its crushing crowds, drunken debauchery and sold-out clubs, isn’t for everyone. That must be why so many music venues tend to celebrate on the eve before the Eve, offering a test run with the next night’s headliners. And while…
Another year is about to go belly-up, and the deadline for New Year’s resolutions is here. Don’t bother dragging out last year’s list; the last time you looked at that was the day you made it. It’s time to start anew, and several December 31 events offer unique ways to…
TUES, 1/4 I worked for years in the retail world, where the general atmosphere always builds to an apocalyptic frenzy in December. Then there’s the day-after sale and, after that, inventory to be taken. No rest for the weary. Even after I retired to a behind-the-scenes buying job in the…
THURS, 12/30 A good friend of mine living in New York City opted to join the YMCA instead of a real gym. He didn’t have the money, he explained. Besides, why be so uppity that you can’t work out with the common man? So when I went to visit him,…
THURS, 12/30 At this point in the season, most of us don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But the holidays are all about being of good cheer — so get happy or else, because comic Adam Ferrara is bringing his Sopranos-style humor along with his New Yawk accent. The…
We’ve all heard the old saw about a picture being worth a thousand words, but what about pictures of words? Are they worth a thousand words — and then some? Or are they worth less than a depiction of something else? I’m not sure what the answer is, but I…
A really smart-looking show now on view at Pirate (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058) has a very matter-of-fact title: New Work by Jimmy Sellars. Sellars is an associate member of the co-op, so his work would normally be found in the back of the gallery space, under the loft. But because…
ANGST. Though unified by the title ANGST, this duet put together by Lisbeth Neergaard Kohloff at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center is actually a pair of freestanding solos: IMAGING ACROPHOBIA and NIGHTWALK. IMAGING ACROPHOBIA is Colorado photographer Andrew Beckham’s exploration of his fear of heights in a series of large-scale…
Stop Kiss is about a slowly developing love affair between two women who don’t, at first, know they’re gay. Sara, an idealistic young teacher, has arrived in New York to take a job at an impoverished school in the Bronx. She comes to Callie’s apartment because the latter has offered…
The Country Dinner Playhouse confuses me. Just when I’ve got the place written off as old-fashioned and out of it, its operators come up with a really good show. Not just pretty good for dinner theater or “Well, at least the leads are talented, even if the supporting cast isn’t,”…
Always…Patsy Cline. Always Patsy Cline is a light, mildly entertaining evening. You get an efficiently evocative set that’s divided into three parts: a down-home apartment; an old-fashioned country bar, complete with jukebox; and, in the center, the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. There are two skilled singer-performers, one of…
By all accounts, the only living creatures who’ve never taken in a stage production of The Phantom of the Opera are Osama bin Laden and Uncle Elmer’s deaf hound dog, Bart — which means that everyone else on the planet has an opinion about how Joel Schumacher’s zillion-dollar movie version…
The parade of real-life figures strolling into the googolplex has been endless this year: Look, there’s Jamie Foxx as musical Mount Rushmore Ray Charles; Johnny Depp as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie; Kevin Spacey as forgotten teeny-popper Bobby Darin; Liam Neeson as sexologist Alfred Kinsey; Kevin Kline as standards composer…
When your movie gets riotous laughter from endless utterances of the word “Focker,” it doesn’t have to try very hard. So it’s no surprise that much of Meet the Fockers, the inevitable sequel to the 2000 hit Meet the Parents, barely breaks a sweat. When in doubt, after all, just…
“I know why I hate integrity,” moans Jeremy Irons late in Callas Forever. “It’s great for the person who has it; it’s pure hell for those around it.” Indeed. As tacky, ponytailed impresario Larry Kelly, Irons makes for one seriously deranged philosopher, but his dedication to the late opera legend…
The critic who takes notes during The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou will ultimately fill a notepad only with scribbled details: “All the crewmen wear red stocking caps with their tuxedos”; “Some names of Zissou’s movies: The Battling Eels of Antibes, Shadow Creatures of the Lurisia Archipelago, Island Cats!”; “One…
