In an era in which Hollywood considers destroying whole cities obligatory for blockbusters, it’s refreshing to recall a time when such fantastical demolition had a poignant significance. You can feel it in Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla, now receiving a sixtieth-anniversary re-release. Honda’s miniatures are both charmingly quaint and touchingly physical (a…
Periodically, I ask my daughter — who has requested I tell her my last wishes for health care, disposal of belongings, funeral, etc., in case I’m unable to express them when the time comes — what she wants done with my body. Does she need it buried, so she’ll have…
The Arvada Center tends to do costume drama very well, and The Great Gatsby, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, is no exception. The costumes, by Clare Henkel, are lovely, and the production is filled with beautiful, stylized people, posing and languidly interacting. Central is charming Daisy, who —…
The Clyfford Still Museum is one of Denver’s great cultural assets, but it’s also the kind of place that most people feel they only need to see once. Museum director Dean Sobel told me that 80 percent of visitors are new to the institution, coming for their first time, with…
Chuck Forsman. The Denver Art Museum’s curator of photography and media arts, Eric Paddock, has a special interest in photos of the American West. For Seen in Passing: Photographs by Chuck Forsman, Paddock chose works from two series by Forsman: “Western Rider” and “Walking Magpie.” Beginning in the 1970s, Forsman…
Animal Crackers. Animal Crackers is a romp, a trifle — full of puns, malapropisms and visual jokes, and utterly, unabashedly silly. The plot is just an excuse for the crazy brothers, nominally playing actual characters, to visit a Long Island mansion and pull off a series of stunts. There are…
Harrison Ford has been a good soldier in the Star Wars. He did whatever was asked of him by his commanding officer, George Lucas, even when his commanding officer was wrong. Now that Ford is back in Star Wars, and J.J. Abrams is running the show, Abrams’s first order of…
When Wally Pfister won an Oscar for Inception, his sixth film with Christopher Nolan, he went home and put the statuette on his mantel. “And then it moved to the corner, and then my office, and then the closet because you go away for a few months, and then it…
Tom Hiddleston can pull off extreme looks. In The Avengers, he strutted around in Loki’s two-foot horned helmet. For Midnight in Paris, he finessed F. Scott Fitzgerald’s prim finger waves. And in his latest, Jim Jarmusch’s vampire romance, Only Lovers Left Alive, Hiddleston lounges bare-chested in velvet-cuffed robes. The only…
MCA Denver’s Huevos Rancheros series is more than just a chance exchange of culture, says museum programming director Sarah Kate Baie; after three years of exhibits and programs with Guadalajaran artists, it’s becoming more of a bridge. “Guadalajara is a city a lot like Denver in many ways,” Baie notes…
The painting depicts a shapely blonde woman, dressed in cowboy boots and a line-dancing dress, flying through the air with a pistol in her hand. Done by Fort Collins artist Tracy Stuckey, the piece was inspired by a folk tale about Slue Foot Sue and Pecos Bill, whose romance was…
The female-scream decibel level is sure to reach epic proportions tonight at the Colorado Firefighter Calendar Tryouts. “It is a night that’s on fire,” says CFC boardmember Crystal Mackey. “It’s literally a runway show of shirtless firefighters, with tons of crazy, screaming women.” Those women will watch as men in…
Although Mommie Dearest has become a cult favorite, its star wants nothing to do with the 1981 film. Faye Dunaway, who plays a raving, cold-cream-wearing Joan Crawford in the tale of tyrannical motherhood, once said that the film effectively ended her career, then refused to elaborate. But there’s one person…
When was the last time you took a walk to the post office or the grocery store? Today’s NE Walk Fest, both a celebration of walking and a learning event focused on two-footed activities, wants you to think twice about how you get around. Put on by the Stapleton Area…
CultureHaus, a young-professionals’ support group for the Denver Art Museum, works all year to raise funds for selective DAM programming. But Banner — a big party with changing artsy themes — is its annual blowout, and this year’s event, Banner 2014: Art of Light, will be particularly illuminating, as well…
Failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing, says Laura Ann Samuelson, dancer and artistic director of Hoarded Stuff Performance. “I find when I talk to artists that I’m interested in, the things that are actually really interesting about their narratives are the things that didn’t quite work out, because it led…
Everyone loves Batman. The world’s greatest detective has managed to become the world’s most popular superhero over the course of his 75-year existence, all without any actual superpowers. Along the way, his bravery, his mission and his ability to hang with heroes who can throw cars around like toys have…
Stories of the Squire Lounge, which turns 75 this weekend, are woven into the character of Colfax Avenue, itself Denver’s most distinctive street. While the recently spruced-up Squire may no longer qualify as a true dive bar, it still serves strong, simple drinks at dive-bar prices, which has allowed the…
“Most of Denver’s academic historians are venal and have taken money from corporate interests. They do shoddy research and bless the establishment altogether,” says renegade historian and self-proclaimed crank Phil Goodstein, who will be leading today’s unofficial bicycle tour of Five Points, a neighborhood he describes as an extreme transition…
“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.” It’s vaudevillian lines like this, uttered famously by Groucho Marx as Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding in the Marx Brothers classic Animal Crackers, that let you know you’re not anyplace even resembling modern…
The stage is set for Monday Magic Madness, the fourth annual celebration of the art of close-up magic. The showcase, which will feature six magicians, benefits the Mile High Magicians Society, a nonprofit that supports the magical arts in Colorado and is one of the largest magic clubs in the…
While debate continues over the city’s handling of public art projects, there are some promising back-door efforts in the private sector. One of those, the OneWall Project, sponsored by Bellco and the Denver Theatre District, will get off the ground tonight when its first effort, MASSIVE, a celebration of work…
