Antony and Cleopatra. Director Robert Benedetti states in the program notes that he has brought a Hollywood sensibility to this text, but the CU production remains stagnant and difficult to follow, perhaps because so many of the actors garble their lines. Antony has been neglecting his duties in Rome for…
Jonathan Demme’s gutsy The Manchurian Candidate, which dares to rear its head just as the Democratic National Convention convenes in Boston, is the anti-Bush-administration movie for those who refuse to see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 or Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed because, well, they just ain’t Right. It’s less a remake of…
Near the beginning of The Corporation, a damning documentary designed to expose everything that is irresponsible, immoral, inhumane and lethal about corporations, the narrator posits the film’s thesis: “We present the corporation as a paradox,” she says, “an institution that creates great wealth but causes enormous and often hidden harm.”…
If you’re, oh, eleven years old and you’ve had it up to here with Spider-Man’s current case of existential angst, it’s time to blow your weekly allowance on Thunderbirds. This special-effects-crammed action blockbuster aims a bit lower, age-wise, which is to say its hyperactive young hero wears a retainer on…
Last year, 165,000 books were published in this country, and this year’s final score could come close. No respectable gambler would make book on the chance that one volume would break out of the pack — but 4th and Fixed has the feel of a winner. Reggie Rivers, former fullback…
Thursday, July 29 The popularity of blue-around-the-collar American characters never seems to wane: Just witness how quickly tickets sold out for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour II’s four Denver dates this week at the Buell Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets. They were gone in an instant, snapped up by faithful…
Fresh out of the East and rising into the international art world are unique toys for adults. No, not those kinds of toys. Well, maybe those kinds of toys. “Mine are pornographic,” says Capsule curator Lauri Lynnxe Murphy of the artwork she’s included in the gallery’s Plush: Perverse Playthings. Without…
Silvana Vukadin-Hoitt is a woman of the world. The German-born Bosnian speaks four languages and has been there, done that, and still hasn’t grown tired of it all. For Vukadin-Hoitt, every day, even the quiet ones spent overseeing her neighborhood boutique, Silvana L’Amour, promises adventure of some sort. Her enthusiasm…
A childhood dominated by soccer saw many of my summer days spent on the sprawling grounds of Dove Valley. There, surrounded by the burnt-sienna landscape, sat acre after acre of impossibly verdant, illegally watered fields. Soccer players — from the skilled Hispanic city dwellers to the bleached-blond suburban machines –…
SAT, 7/31 “Last year, even Mayor Hickenlooper hung out at the Bluebird. He showed up with his scooter, flip-flops and even a Hawaiian shirt,” says Phil Lombardo. Unfortunately, Hizzoner is on vacation and won’t be back for this year’s Mile High Mayhem, but the rest of the city will rev…
SUN, 8/1 Cirque du Soleil is dazzling, but audience members often find themselves gasping as much from the high-flying prices as from the high-flying stunts. For the next two weeks, Boulder’s Frequent Flyers offers some relief, with Cirque-like performances at prices that won’t make spectators queasy. Starting today, the Flyers’…
Members of the Denver City Council and community leaders have been talking a lot lately about improving East Colfax Avenue. And I have to admit, even if I love the honky-tonk character of the street — and I do — it does look pretty shabby in places. This is strange,…
A few years ago, University of Colorado regents made the rash decision to abandon the school’s Health Sciences Center campus in east Denver and move it to the Fitzsimons campus in Aurora. As illogical as that idea was, there’s no second-guessing it now, because it’s a fait accompli. Departments of…
Dots, Blobs and Angels. Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art is presenting an enormous solo that is dedicated to the late David Rigsby, an artist who played a big part in the local art scene in the ’70s and ’80s. The exhibit was organized by director Cydney Payton, who installed it…
I’d like to write one of those judicious “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” reviews of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Antony and Cleopatra. I’d like to draw attention to sparks of life and ingenuity, fine moments in the major performances and interpretations of the smaller roles…
Cabaret. Cabaret is grim and distressing, and there’s not a hint of redemption anywhere in it. Quite the contrary. But this is a bloody good production, the kind of production that could — and should — attract all kinds of people who might never think of setting foot in a…
Without risking much critical credibility, it can be said that Catwoman succeeds on its own feline terms. Much like a cat, the movie is a superfluous gob of fluff with an attitude ranging from idiotic to nasty. It’s a sleek and self-absorbed animal, adoring itself so ardently that those of…
Is this one of those avant-garde things?” a dying Cole Porter (Kevin Kline) warily asks Gabe (Jonathan Pryce), a sort of Ghost of Musicals Past who appears out of the ether to shepherd the composer through the this-was-your-life montage that makes up Irvin Winkler’s biopic De-Lovely. “It’s a musical –…
Long before he made masterpieces like Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath and The Searchers, Sean Aloysius O’Feeney — better known to us as John Ford — directed a silent movie called The Iron Horse (1924). It’s an archetypal early Western, in which a man seeking revenge for his father’s murder…
Mayor John Hickenlooper will really speak up for the arts on Thursday, July 22, when he narrates Peter and the Wolf. The presentation kicks off the fifteenth season of Theater in the Park. The series of free outdoor performances will be staged this summer at the newly remodeled Greek amphitheater…
Thursday, July 22 It’s a night to trip the light fantastic in City Park, where free poetry and art will intersect gracefully in the evening hours. First, it’s the Robert Burns Statue Centennial Celebration, hosted by the Colorado Center for the Book in celebration of the Scottish poet, whose bronze…
A book called The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Band has the sound of a great gag gift — and if someone purchases it for that reason, freelancer Steve Knopper, who co-authored the tome with music-biz veteran Mark Bliesener, won’t complain. “Hey, as long as their credit cards work,…
