Blithe Spirit doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a critique of upper-class society or an evocative exploration of the border between the living and the dead, despite all the ghostly goings-on. Even though Noel Coward wrote the play in 1941, when the bombs were dropping on London, there are no socio-political…
Does anyone care about John McClane anymore? That’s not the same as asking if you want to see A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth in this series of films with increasingly outlandish action — and increasingly cumbersome titles. The most recent entry — the slick, ridiculous hit, Live…
Abbas Kiarostami is preoccupied with my tape recorder. He wonders if it’s too far away from where he’s sitting. He makes his translator switch from one side of him to another so that the recorder is between them. After a while, clearly still anxious about it, he picks it up…
Three local film festivals — the Boulder International Film Festival, the Festivus Film Festival and Women + Film — will light up Denver-area screens over the latter half of February and the early part of March, providing plenty of viewing opportunities for movie buffs. The mission of the Boulder International…
Internet assholes are always yelling about what Lena Dunham doesn’t wear on Girls, but let’s talk about something she does. Bros who think everything should be marketed to them never get tired of pointing out that Dunham’s Hannah Horvath seems to be topless more often than not, a point of…
If Sundance signals the annual launch of American indie cinema’s new product line, the 63-year-old Berlin Film Festival (February 7-17) offers the year’s first major look at what the rest of the world has to offer. In addition to the nineteen-film official competition — this year presided over by jury…
Counter to the usual Valentine’s Day activities we all know and only some of us love, V-Day, the global activist movement started fifteen years ago today by Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler, shines its light on a different aspect of love: respect for and solidarity with women who have been…
You don’t need to find a Valentine for the Singles Day Soiree: This shindig is all about the single life. Taking over the main floor of the Jet Hotel, the party will offer plenty of activities that encourage singles to mingle, including free shots (from 9 to 11 p.m.), interactive…
With its bizarre onslaught of sentient drugs, invisible aliens and time-tripping insanity, Don Coscarelli’s John Dies at the End is like no film you’ve seen before. “It’s about a silent inter-dimensional invasion of our reality, focusing on two college-dropout slackers who find themselves with the fate of the world in…
For those with laughable love lives, or even attached couples who’d rather chuckle than go out to a swanky dinner, the Colorado Comedy Coalition is putting on a show at the Voodoo Comedy Playhouse that’s all about amour. Featuring performances by comedians Chris Miller, Kristin Rand, Willie Red, Derrick Culver,…
Since its beginnings in the 1970s, the Big Band Boogie Bash has been an annual tradition for college and high-school big bands. For the past decade, the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts — a thirteen-year-old mentoring program that teaches middle- and high-school students about jazz performance, history and language…
Geeks, rejoice! There’s nerd love in the air, and Harry Potter heads, Tolkien fans, Trekkies, gamers and cosplayers of all types are invited to tonight’s Nerd Love Is True Love: A Science Fiction/Fantasy Sing-Along and Sale. At the gathering, organized by Tolkien discussion society the Grey Havens Group, participants will…
If you’ve ever had a hankering to be served by gentlemen in kilts, this is your lucky day: The Colorado Tartan Day Council’s Highland Tea fundraiser will provide that delightful opportunity along with the other delicacies you’d expect at a proper tea. Today’s event is a benefit for the council’s…
The call-and-response nature of kirtan/chant music is designed to settle your mind into the same place of stillness achieved through meditation — but with less effort. That’s a good way to sum up everything you’ll find at the inaugural Denver Chant Fest. And chant is far from all that’s on…
The mission of the Boulder International Film Festival has always been simple: to screen films that won’t be showing at the cineplex downtown. “These are films that people might never see in Boulder,” says Kathy Beeck, who founded the festival in 2004 with her sister, Robin. “We go through a…
Michael Mitnick’s comedy Ed, Downloaded began its Denver life last winter as a dramatic reading for the Denver Center Theatre Company’s Colorado New Play Summit. Now it returns, as is often the case, as a full-blown production at the Ricketson Theatre. And if you like movies, this play — the…
We watched from the comfort of our undisturbed homes when Japan’s Tohoku coast was devastated in 2011 by a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami. But for author Gretel Ehrlich (This Cold Heaven, The Future of Ice and The Solace of Open Spaces), it wasn’t enough to commiserate from afar. Already…
If you’re at all familiar with Buntport, you already know that its latest original work, Wake, will not really resemble its inspiration, Shake-speare’s The Tempest. Somehow, Buntport’s imaginative crew will find a unique way to deconstruct the story. “We’re calling it a ‘corruption of The Tempest,’” explains company member Brian…
No matter how urbanized cities like Denver become, romantic images of tumbleweeds and telephone poles will always be attached to the American West. But the art coming out of our region has changed, and Gallery 1261 aims to highlight these new trends in Rethinking Western. The show features artists who…
The Faux Show, at the Museum of Outdoor Arts, looks for the line between what is and is not art. “We thought we would explore the different ways the visual arts are exploited in pop culture,” says museum project manager Tim Vacca, adding that this is “an exhibition that doesn’t…
This year’s Festivus Film Festival, the sixth annual celebration of indie flicks, isn’t saving its best for last. Rather, it will explode out of the gates with a first night that puts Colorado filmmakers firmly in the limelight. “We have block that’s all local shorts, and a feature film called…
Denver will welcome the Snowsports Industries America (SIA) Snow Show for the third consecutive year this coming weekend, and while the trade show at the Colorado Convention Center is industry-only, promoters have surrounded it with a citywide celebration of hot events dedicated to the cold: Art of Winter. “SIA is…
