Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri yields almost unalloyed pleasure. It’s about as light and frothy an opera as I can imagine, with a plot that reads like Gilbert and Sullivan at their sunniest and a number of songs as outrageously funny as they are melodically and rhythmically scintillating. Mustafa, the Bey…
Stan Lee, for better or worse the most recognizable face in the history of the comic book, insists he has no love for rehashing his past. He claims to take no great joy from talking about long-ago yesterdays spent in smoky rooms co-creating the likes of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man,…
To prepare for reviewing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I did the obvious research: I watched Yellowbeard again. Yes, yes, indeed — can’t do without Fairbanks as the Black Pirate and Flynn as Captain Blood. But when appraising a new comedic pirate adventure, it’s important…
French director François Ozon doesn’t like to repeat himself. His last film, 8 Women, was a theatrical, rather campy piece of fluff starring the crème de la crème of contemporary Gallic actresses. Before that came Under the Sand, an unsettling drama about a woman (Charlotte Rampling, giving perhaps her finest…
Before the cult of Twin Peaks shook up American television, long before the unfettered weirdness of Mulholland Drive, pop culture’s most dedicated surrealist, David Lynch, gave us a fascinating precursor, Blue Velvet (1986). Peeping through the windows of a seemingly normal small town, Lynch finds murder and perversion in the…
Maybe I watched The Lone Ranger a few too many times as a child, but nothing says “Old West romantic” like a train ride through the mountains: Give me beautiful vistas, dark tunnels and the lurking danger of horse-riding bandits every time. Don’t get me wrong: I realize that this…
Thursday, July 10 Take advantage of a rare chance to learn about a little-known chapter in baseball history when Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Story, a documentary film by Jari Osbourne, screens at 7:30 p.m. tonight and tomorrow at the Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli Student Union, 900 Auraria Parkway…
Dan Zanes wants to change the world. He thinks music, particularly the back-porch variety, is the key. And because grassroots efforts must start at the very beginning, he’s taken to pitching his to kids — or, to be more exact, families. Zanes has recorded a string of high-quality CDs with…
FRI, 7/11 Get ready for sensory overload at this weekend’s Denver Black Arts Festival. In keeping with this year’s “Stimulating the Senses” theme, Denver’s 17th annual African-American cultural celebration aims to overwhelm with music, pageantry and art. “We’re giving people an opportunity to experience all the senses — touch, smell,…
SAT, 7/12 Animals can have it pretty rough. Anyone who’s seen pictures of forest critters fleeing wildfires — or has had to evacuate livestock or pets — knows that disasters don’t just impact two-legged types. And it’s not only major catastrophes that can wear down the furry and feathered residents…
TUES, 7/15 The versatile David Taylor Dance Theatre will upend the notion that theirs is a mono-cultural medium when the troupe presents A World of Dance in a free outdoor performance at Englewood’s CityCenter Amphitheater. The show, which begins at 7 p.m. tonight, is a colorful compilation of eight short…
MON, 7/14 At age 57, Essie Garrett just keeps on going. But even she admits it isn’t getting easier: One of Denver’s favorite long-distance runners, Garrett’s known for her one-woman cross-country fundraising marathons, which cover hundreds of miles, all in the name of one cause or another. One of her…
SUN, 7/13 It’s fitting that the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture’s first Lazarus Family Summer Concert would feature a group called Mikveh: The all-woman klezmer supergroup is named after the ritual bath that is a monthly tradition for many Jewish women. (The practice also happens to be the subject…
For the past ten years or so, the Denver Art Museum has presented one important exhibit after another, focusing on art from the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first ones of the twentieth. As a result, Denver audiences have enjoyed numerous explorations of such relevant topics as…
The exhibit ReconFIGURED: Persons and Personas of the Permanent Collection, on display at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (30 West Dale Street, Colorado Springs, 1-719-634-5581), includes an eclectic assortment of pieces that range widely in style and date. One standout among this mixed bag is the institution’s famous John…
A life in art requires absolute dedication. We all know about the obsessive writing and rewriting, the pain-filled, sweaty workouts in the ballet studio and the hours of instrument practice of the serious artist. It’s this kind of passion that’s on view in Take Me Out to the Ball Game…
This revival of 42nd Street is a musical-comedy lover’s musical comedy, a self-referential tribute to an artform that’s already self-referential and artificial at its most sincere. Writers Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble don’t even try to create multi-dimensional characters or to imbue the hoary old plot (bright-eyed ingenue becomes a…
Much like “hilarious Islamic comedy” or “sublime Affleck picture,” the term “terrific second sequel” isn’t bandied about very much. Name one. Took you a minute, didn’t it? Don’t be ashamed — there are probably support groups for fans of Smokey and the Bandit III. Generally, creative juices are drained by…
The Chicago-based filmmaker Steve James rose to prominence in 1994 with Hoop Dreams, a gritty, uncomfortably intimate portrait of two inner-city kids who try to escape poverty and deprivation through basketball. Shot over four years, it was at once a stirring indictment of the social-services bureaucracy, a tribute to family…
The Boulder Public Library has been running a Stanley Kubrick retrospective since early May as part of its popular free summer movie series, and it’s difficult to imagine a more welcome return to the big screen than Kubrick’s gorgeous vision of eighteenth-century Europe, Barry Lyndon (1975). Adapted from William Makepeace…
“I am a woman, and I am beautiful, and I am black,” says Panther, a spoken-word artist. “We are all sisters, and we are all beautiful, and everyone else needs to know that now.” Panther joins forces with poets Bianca Mikahn and Lady Speech in Black Woman Love, a hip-hop…
Thursday, July 3 Who’s warming up Red Rocks for the Dead? John Popper and the rest of Blues Traveler, of course, continuing what’s become their annual tradition of spending the Fourth under the stars at Colorado’s most awesome natural amphitheater. Gates open today and tomorrow at 4 p.m. for shows…
