One of the things that keeps art interesting is the way it’s constantly flowing, with various currents periodically overtaking one another and, in that way, changing established ideas. Last year, for example, a series of shows launched by the Getty Center in Los Angeles, collectively known as Pacific Standard Time,…
A trashy vampire flick in art-film drag, Kiss of the Damned satisfies on neither level. Drawing on a host of Euro-horror influences, including but far from limited to a synth score reminiscent of Dario Argento’s Goblin-performed soundtracks, Xan Cassavetes’s pastiche follows lonely bloodsucker Djuna (Josephine de la Baume) as she…
Who are you?” pleads a doomed man as Benedict Cumberbatch looms into his first close-up in Star Trek Into Darkness. The answer is Khan. And that’s not a spoiler — it’s a selling point. A less secretive director (i.e., all save the ghost of Stanley Kubrick) would trumpet that his…
Seemingly crafted to validate the fears of those conservatives who rage that the white man can’t get respect on the big screen these days, the smart-till-it-isn’t thriller Black Rock centers on a tense scene of hero-pantsing and gender inversion. The piece-of-shit bad guys, a couple of vets of our desert…
Dividing the Estate is a quietly incisive play about a large and contentious family. Stella Gordon, the 85-year-old matriarch, rules over a grand old house in Harrison, Texas — the fictional small town where author Horton Foote set most of his sixty plays. Stella is strong-willed and authoritative, but essentially…
The power of mothers — for good and ill — is a theater trope that never quite loses its potency. In Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water, three daughters convene for the funeral of their mother, Vi, who has, in different ways, ruined all their lives. Mary was the repository…
The only thing we English teachers hate more than SparkNotes is a high-quality, mostly faithful movie version of a book. Why would a student slog through Pride and Prejudice when she can drool over Colin Firth in the excellent BBC miniseries? And shhh! Don’t tell the eighth-graders about Gregory Peck’s…
The biggest puzzlement of these early days of the festival comes from Sofia Coppola, one of my favorite working directors. Until now, I have loved every one of Coppola’s movies: I love her sure and delicate touch, and she’s better than any other contemporary filmmaker at capturing the greatness of…
François Ozon’s Young & Beautiful, a portrait of a seventeen-year-old French call girl, is something else again. This is another story about a family in crisis: Isabelle (played by Marine Vacth, a stunning-looking if ultimately inert actress) is a student who still lives at home with her mother, stepfather, and…
One of the most exciting things about attending the Cannes Film Festival is being among the first people to see the films the world will be talking about. That’s one of the terrible things, too: There’s no one to warn you when you’re about to see a puppy murder, a…
Nearly everyone I know who has seen the official poster for the 66th Cannes Film Festival — a bird’s-eye view of a kiss between a young Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward — has been crazy about it. The couple’s lips meet in the center of a perfect sunburst. She’s two…
Did you hear the one about Colleen, the online-date-a-holic whose most recent courting fiasco involved the Itcher and his unfortunately boisterous “Hey, Match.com lady!” greeting, which instantly turned heads at P.F. Chang’s? These sorts of urban-dating legends — fraught with disaster and innate satire, and too juicy to make up…
Comedian Ron White is a cultural anomaly. He’s a tough cigar-and-scotch man’s man who supports the troops, but also a dope-smoking marriage-equality advocate who believes that everyone’s a little gay. He’s toured with Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, yet he’s never self-censoring…
RedLine resident artist Justin Beard laments the lack of performance art in Denver. “Back in 2000, when I first moved here, it seemed like there was a lot going on, with things like Mr. Pacman and Little Fyodor. I was blown away by it, but then it sort of faded…
Community theater puts on hokey “interactive show” about “being in a karaoke bar.” That’s exactly what Sean Mahoney and Michael Emmitt of the new Horse & Cart production company did not have in mind for The Singing Room, an original script they’ll reveal to the public tonight in the basement…
Putting improvisation on two wheels and setting it to music is the concept behind Sweat, the latest production at Off-Center@The Jones. Actress Meridith C. Grundei is the brains behind the long-form improv show, which is based on a similar bicycle-mounted, on-the-spot production she put together in Chicago several years ago…
Elephants are slow, lumbering animals, right? Actually, they’ve been clocked at 25 mph — nearly as fast as the fastest human. During the eighth annual Kaiser Permanente Colfax Marathon, however, the elephants will be mere spectators as thousands of runners stream through the Denver Zoo. The marathon begins today with…
Denver Urban Gardens outgrew its office a long time ago; much like a root ball squeezing its way out of a clay pot, DUG was confined and finding it more and more difficult to get things done in a packed space where desk-sharing is the norm. But that will change…
For the past eight years, Curious Theatre has been honoring local icons who’ve been key players in shaping Denver’s cultural landscape with short plays about their lives. This year, it’s focusing on music-business luminary and AEG Live Rocky Mountains president/CEO Chuck Morris, the man responsible for bringing such national acts…
The lazy days of summer are almost here, and to usher in the season, Larimer Square boutiques are joining forces to show hot looks to update your wardrobe. Young professionals from groups like the Central City Opera, the Denver Center Theatre Marquee Club and the Reel Social Club will model…
Denver’s made the national news a lot over the past year, whether for last summer’s wildfires, the Aurora theater shootings or the legalization of marijuana. Inspired by these events and looking for a way to process them through art, the Damsels Dance Company created Denver on Fire: A Social Commentary…
A trashy vampire flick in art-film drag, Kiss of the Damned satisfies on neither level. Drawing on a host of Euro-horror influences, including but far from limited to a synth score reminiscent of Dario Argento’s Goblin-performed soundtracks, Xan Cassavetes’s pastiche follows lonely bloodsucker Djuna (Josephine de la Baume) as she…
