The spooky beauty of Elephant, Gus Van Sant’s strange take on the Columbine massacre, arises not from the shock of sudden violence, but from the filmmaker’s steady gaze at the numbing routines of life inside a suburban high school. With what first looks like cool detachment, Van Sant (My Own…
When performance artist Holly Hughes blows into Boulder this Thursday to speak at the Open Door Fund’s eighth annual Monsoon Dinner, she’ll raise some money — and maybe a few eyebrows, too. The feisty Obie Award winner and outspoken lesbian artist created quite a squall in the early ’90s when…
11/6 A trunkload of gorgeous specimens — including Navajo weavings from Ganado, Teec Nos Pos, Wide Ruins, Crystal, Burnham, Shiprock and Two Grey Hills — will go on the block today during One Hundred Navajo Rugs, an annual silent auction to benefit the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Museum of…
Shepard Fairey works by night. Since 1989, when the then-Rhode Island School of Design student created his first sticker — a depiction of wrestler Andre the Giant’s head over the phrase “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” — Fairey’s been skulking in the dark all over the world. He reclaims…
Photos shed light on black history By DeNesha Tellis If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the works included in Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African American Photography add up to an encyclopedia of the black experience in America.The three-part exhibition, on tour since January 2001, explores the history…
The Arvada Center weaves a spell with Charlotte’s Web By Ernie Tucker Few books hold the timeless appeal of E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. The classic tale of a precocious spider’s rescue of a pig even found a second life as a children’s-theater staple. But no matter how many times…
Ways to beat the pre-holiday shopping crush By Susan Froyd On your marks, get set… Halloween’s over, and the holiday shopping season is here. But while everyone else is waddling through the mall like a flock of penguins in a sea of molasses, you’ll run with a crowd of a…
The Champions brings sports all-stars to life By Hart Van Denburg You may not know Denver’s Rich Clarkson, but if you’re a sports fan, you’d probably recognize his photographs. For fifty years, Clarkson has covered college and professional teams for publications such as Sports Illustrated and Time; included in his…
The Shangri-La acrobats whirl into town By Julie Dunn Combining balance with pretzel-like contortions, formidable kung fu moves and a dash of Chinese comedy, the world-renowned Shangri-La Chinese Acrobats will share their unique brand of entertainment tonight at the Lakewood Cultural Center, 480 South Allison Parkway in Lakewood. “We’ve never…
It would be accurate to call BLOOD: Lines & Connections, the fall-winter exhibit at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, a bold effort. It would also not be too far wrong to call the show — or at least parts of it — outrageous, confrontational and over the top. MCA director…
This past spring, emerging artist Jared David Paul founded an exhibition space that he originally called the Santa Fe Arts Assembly. He has since shortened the name to the Assembly (766 Santa Fe Drive, 303-257-0145), because the original name, it turns out, misled people into thinking that the space was…
The news at Country Dinner Playhouse is that Bill McHale — artistic director from the time the playhouse opened in 1970 until his premature retirement in 2000 — is back. Which means that after three years of lackluster productions, there’s a strong, vibrant show on stage. Sure, it’s that hoary…
All the sad young men, drifting through the town Drinking up the night, trying not to drown — “Ballad of All the Sad Young Men,” by Thomas J. Wolf Jr. and Frances Landesman William Inge’s Picnic so entirely typifies the ethos of the 1950s that it forces a director to…
The riddles of identity that drive and disturb Philip Roth’s impressive body of fiction usually focus on contemporary Jewish characters whose conflicts between self-absorption and self-hatred remain poignantly (and often hilariously) unresolved. But in The Human Stain, the first Roth novel to be adapted as a film in three decades,…
Remember that silly little-girl version of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally… snuffling “I’m difficult!” through a charming tantrum? Well, make it a point to enthusiastically greet Ryan’s new incarnation in the psychosexual thriller In the Cut. Post-Crystal, post-Hanks and even post-husband Dennis Quaid (toward whom this performance almost…
That crazy little girl hidden away behind a cold, white bedroom door in Georgetown, with her mouthful of pea soup and her patented 360-degree head-swivel trick, still has the power to scare the hell out of us, and she will do it again Friday, October 31, in Boulder. The Exorcist,…
Nobody understands the gestalt approach to making music better than guitarist (and former Denverite) Bill Frisell, one the great original improvisers of our time and a recording artist who changes partners more frequently than a square-dancer. But it’s not that he’s fickle: Frisell is just a dreamer, a musical sponge…
Thursday, October 30 Sque-e-e-ak For old-time radio aficionados, that eerie sound effect, followed by greetings from a creepy-voiced host, needs no introduction: It was the trademark opener for every episode of The Inner Sanctum, the popular ’40s mystery program that enjoyed a run of over ten years, from radio’s heyday…
There’s nothing quite like the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). El Día is a time when families build living-room altars and decorate family members’ graves as a sign of love and respect. Beginning every November 1 and continuing through the following day, it’s a celebration…
Want to get in touch with your inner Little Red Riding Hood or let loose the Gandalf trapped inside your routine self?Don’t wait around for a fairy godmother to help. Instead, check out some of the dozens of costume stores in the Denver area. And while this isn’t a complete…
SAT, 11/1 The rumblings started early last season, when the Denver Nuggets became the first — and only — National Basketball Association team to add a Portuguese-translation page to its official team Web site.The catalyst for this linguistic link was rock-steady Brazilian rookie Nenê Hilario (now simply known as Nenê)…
SAT, 11/1 We try to get our kids to read, but it’s an uphill climb in the 21st century: The older they get, the more tuned in they are to sense-teasing technological amusements — Game Boys and Xboxes, non-stop television and computer games — and the less inclined they are…
