The Robischon Gallery is surely the flagship of Denver’s contemporary-art venues. Oh, sure, there are a handful that are every bit as good — but none are any better or have as long of a distinguished track record. The gallery’s physical plant, with its high ceilings and big walls, is…
I’m going to throw caution to the wind and say that Continuum: Magnetic Sustensions, by Joseph Shaeffer, is one of the best shows by an emerging artist that we’re likely to see during the 2002-2003 season — which, by the way, has only just started. The Shaeffer show is being…
There is simply no way of explaining musical genius on the order of Mozart’s, and I think that’s the puzzle at the heart of Peter Shaffer’s glittering and celebrated play, Amadeus, which received all kinds of awards and attention when it first opened in London, in 1980, and again four…
As far as I can tell, David Lindsay-Abaire, author of A Devil Inside, has a good education, an effervescent imagination, a lot of smarts, a highly developed comic sense — and nothing much to say as yet. The play is full of ugly, violent imagery, but none of its deaths…
As pharmacologist Elmo McElroy in Formula 51, Samuel L. Jackson initially sports a seriously silly fake Afro along with hippie-dippy threads that make him look like some sort of flower-power cult leader. When next we see him, it’s thirty years later, and he’s got cornrows and is inexplicably wearing a…
Death is too often taken literally, and this unfortunate perspective is sustained by much cinema, despite the medium’s dubious kiss of immortality. There’s easy drama in tragedy and grisly ends, but moviemakers don’t often successfully deliver symbolic death, the subtly grim yet vital bridge between lively verses. Happily, director George…
Let’s start at the very beginning, shall we? For much of the movie-going public, the 1965 film debut of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music marked the start of a lifelong love affair. Hot on the heels of her turn as Mary Poppins the year before, Julie Andrews secured…
The average first-time novelist would be thrilled if even one famous person said something nice about his or her writing — so imagine how excited Kathi Kamen Goldmark is: The jacket of her inaugural offering, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, includes rave reviews from best-selling authors such…
There’s a dizzying array of notable photography shows in Denver right now. And while photographs are always on display somewhere in town, it’s hard to recall an autumn with so many photo and photo-based shows as season openers. There are a number of reasons for this. During the past thirty…
Emerging artist R. Scott Davis lives in New York, but as an alumnus of the University of Colorado at Boulder, he still has ties to this area. In Chromatic Flux, now at the Cordell Taylor Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927), Davis explores the abstract potential of photographs, adding to the…
There’s something about the idea of separating the mingled good and evil within each of us that won’t let go of the imagination. Part of the appeal of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the early seasons lay in the character of Angel, the vampire with a human soul, the dark,…
Wear something silver. The 25th Starz Denver International Film Festival starts Thursday night at the Buell Theatre with White Oleander, Peter Kosminsky’s study of a girl’s harrowing journey through a series of L.A. foster homes; it will close ten days later at the Buell Theatre with Bowling for Columbine, political…
For more than two decades, Ron Henderson has been the heart and soul of the Denver International Film Festival — shepherd and shill, house philosopher and dogged troubleshooter. A publicity volunteer in year one and the festival’s director since 1981, he’s coaxed cash out of tight-fisted bankers, discovered cinematic masterpieces…
Good Lord, there hasn’t been this much yellow hair on screen since the Von Trapp children sang and danced their way across the Alps in The Sound of Music. The fact that these latest golden locks belong to the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn and Renée Zellweger suggests…
Some people have blah Sundays. Fans of motorcycle racing have wheelie-poppin’, rubber-burnin’, throttle-thrustin’ Sundays. And in a season finale this Sunday, Colorado’s Motorcycle Roadracing Association (MRA) will unleash more than one hundred amateur-class racers to tackle hairpin turns and jockey for position along the paved, 1.7-mile Second Creek Raceway. The…
Bigger is definitely better when it comes to the ‘dos on display at this weekend’s Mile Hi Hair Ball. The ball was inspired by New York’s Wigstock and Houston’s Wigs on Fire, says David Westman, who will host Denver’s inaugural do as NuClia Waste, the Princess of Plutonium, his drag-queen…
It’s no wonder the home-improvement business is going like gangbusters: People seem to be digging in and staying home these days. So, of course, they want to improve their abodes, which are becoming less and less like crash pads all the time. But even when you do the work yourself,…
During the past four or five seasons, a legion of exhibitions have been presented in the area that explore the rich topic of abstract art in Colorado. These shows, of both modern and contemporary stripes, have revealed the presence of an indigenous Front Range modernist scene — dating back over…
There’s a very smart-looking solo exhibit called Amorphous Unifiers at the Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173). Made up of a series of closely associated works by longtime Edge member Dania Pettus, the show is installed in the co-op’s front room. Pettus calls her pieces “photographs,” but that’s not really…
When a writer wants to explore complex issues, it makes sense to pick a simple format. Lee Blessing has set his 1988 play, Two Rooms, in — appropriately — two rooms and limited the cast to four. There’s Michael Wells, held hostage in a dank cell in mid-1980s Beirut. And…
Alone on stage at the Aurora Fox, working on a set designed as a grimy basement, actor Greg Price is in almost constant motion, shuttling between the phone on his desk, a wall intercom and the red phone of an alarm box adorned with a huge blinking red light. From…
I might as well just come out and say it: Spirited Away is the best movie I’ve seen all year. Though it would be a masterpiece in any language, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated spectacular (and Japan’s highest-grossing film ever) is being released by Disney in two versions simultaneously: one in the…
