Strawberry Shortcuts

Some movies are more difficult than others; Wild Strawberries — as well as just about any Ingmar Bergman flick — definitely qualifies. And though this complex film, in which an elderly widower re-evaluates his life through a series of hitchhiker encounters, ends well, it’s also a kind of unfolding psychoanalysis…

The Shock of the New

You might say curator Petra Sertis of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art went a little bit out on a limb for her fall exhibitions, which feature a trio of very young regional artists whose previous exposure has been primarily underground. “All three of these artists had already caught my…

Love in the Afternoon

When Niza Knoll saw Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” during a visit to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, she was awestruck. “When you study art history in school, you see all the slides, but when you see the original piece, it’s a whole different thing,” she says. The iconic…

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

The sad-eyed ladies of tattoo artist and painter Sandi Calistro have a compelling way of staring you down, whether they’re inked into the skin or slapped on a wall. Calistro says they’re born from the “heartbreaking experiences” we’ve all been through — which explains why they stay with you for…

Terminal Kings street art murals: a sneak peek

Terminal Kings, a new art project commissioned by the Denver International Airport’s Art and Culture Program, is taking off this week, as world-class street artists Sam Flores, David Choe and Highraff work on giant murals — each 100’x8′, painted in panels — that will be used as construction barricades at…

Now Showing

Clyfford Still. For the opening of the Clyfford Still Museum, founding director Dean Sobel has installed a career survey of the great artist. Clyfford Still: Inaugural Exhibition starts with the artist’s realist self-portrait and features his remarkable post-impressionist works from the 1920s. Next are Still’s works from the ’30s, with…

Pariah is a moving story of coming of age and coming out

The first ten minutes of Pariah — Dee Rees’s funny, moving, nuanced and impeccably acted first feature, in which coming of age and coming out are inseparable — sharply reveal the conflicts that seventeen-year-old Alike (Adepero Oduye) faces. Riding the bus back to her Fort Greene, Brooklyn, home after a…

Joyful Noise is a holy hot mess of the sacred and inane

A holy hot mess of the sacred and the inane, Joyful Noise, about a small-town Southern gospel choir, lifts from Usher’s “Yeah!” to give us this inspirational lyric: “Now God and I are the best of homies.” The film is Jesus for Gleeks — no surprise, since writer-director Todd Graff’s…

Present Laughter‘s mix of style and vulgarity works

Belgians and Greeks do it, Nice young men who sell antiques do it Let’s do it. Let’s fall in love. The Brontes felt that they must do it, Ernest Hemingway could just do it Let’s do it. Let’s fall in love. Tennessee Williams, self taught, does it, Kinsey with a…

Photo: Tebowing wheat paste on South Platte trail

If you’re on a bike ride on the South Platte trail and you see the below wheat paste, what do you do? Naturally, you post that on reddit. Found by reddit user missjenviolin, it can be seen on the “South Platte trail near Mile High and Elitch’s. There is a…

Ten Colorado companies strut their stuff at the Consumer Electronics Show

The Consumer Electronics Show, that yearly technology bacchanal, kicks off today in Las Vegas. It’s an orgy of smartphones, tablets, Justin Bieber and … gospel singers belting out tweets? You better believe it. A host of Colorado companies are there, showing and telling and (hopefully) generating buzz. Here, we present…

Scorpions, slams, and faceplants: Female snowboarders go hard

The ice ceiling in snowboarding has led to inequalities for female competitors on the Winter Dew Tour and other professional events. It has also led to a near dearth of women’s parts in this season’s crop of snowboarding films. That point is something Peepshow is aiming to address with its…