The prospect of an evening of ghost stories is intriguing, especially this time of year, but there’s no point in dragging it out for two-and-three-quarter hours when only five to ten minutes’ worth of the material is even of passing interest. Director Scott Gibson and company’s enthusiasm notwithstanding, Once Upon…
And now…a G-rated movie from David Lynch! No, Lynch hasn’t lost his mind. He hasn’t gone soft in the head. And he hasn’t sold out to the smiley-faced bean counters at Disney. While the notion of America’s King of Weird — the man who brought us Blue Velvet and Twin…
Steven Soderbergh may have had some rocky times after his 1989 breakthrough with sex, lies, & videotape, but these days he’s on a roll. Last year he produced Pleasantville and directed Out of Sight, two of the year’s most praised films. This year, he has The Limey, a complex, introspective…
Alison Hawthorne Deming is a woman who knows her place. Born and raised in Connecticut, Deming came west to live in Tucson only about ten years ago, the practical result of being offered a position at the University of Arizona. But the unique problems of a region where great natural…
My grandmother was a quiet, unpretentious kind of woman who rarely complained and seemed satisfied keeping her opinions to herself. So when I asked Grandma one day why she didn’t play bingo every Friday night with her lady friends, she startled me. “That’s for the old ladies,” she said with…
The hippest of the hipsters on the art scene have been doing lots of pooh-poohing and naysaying about the blockbuster Impressionism: Paintings Collected by European Museums, which is now playing at the Denver Art Museum. Essentially, these cool-eratti believe that impressionism is too pedestrian for them — and that the…
The O’Sullivan Arts Center, located on the campus of Regis University, is an oft-overlooked exhibition venue that always has something worth seeing. Right now in the large and handsome gallery is a duet in which painter Amy Metier has been paired with sculptor Richard Stephenson. The exhibit, called See Saw,…
His radical American cousins have reduced the grandeur of character to the smithereens of personality. His angry English countrymen have rejected arch debate in favor of circuitous harangue. And his disaffected Irish forebears have alternately romanticized, upbraided and forsaken their motherland. But rather than siphon such tried-and-true iconoclasm, twenty-something playwright…
In an age when a former professional wrestler (and current elected official) declares organized religion a crutch for the weak-minded (who need strength in numbers), a talking-head presidential candidate spews inflammatory remarks about religious groups and a so-called reverend pickets the funeral of a murdered gay man, it seems a…
David Fincher needs a hug, the poor bastard. Or possibly a diaper change. Ever since 1992, when he ruined the Alien series with the excrescence of his pointless, senseless third installment, he’s been making the same bratty, obnoxious movie over and over again: gloom, doom, indestructible protagonist, bureaucratic evil, quasi-religious…
According to The Story of Us, men and women have different responses to life, love and sex, and this can sometimes result in conflicts and tension in a marriage. And you thought American Beauty was daring. The “us” of the title are Ben (Bruce Willis) and Katie (Michelle Pfeiffer). He’s…
When I was growing up, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was the closest thing I had to a paternal mentor, the only authoritative voice I consistently trusted. Novel after freakish, scattershot, infinitely humane novel, the man provided tools to identify and cope with the daily horrors of America — this vast sea…
The Great American Beer Festival is the ultimate test of mettle. The three-day event presents about 1,700 different beers, making it the drinking equivalent of the Tour de France or the Boston Marathon. Thankfully for attendees, tasting each of these beers is not required. But for Paul Gatza and his…
The twenty-second Denver International Film Festival opens this week with a showing of Sydney Pollack’s Random Hearts at the Buell Theatre. Director Pollack (Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Firm) will introduce the romantic drama, which stars Harrison Ford and English Patient leading lady Kristin Scott Thomas. This year’s festivities also…
The Robischon Gallery has launched its fall and winter schedule with Manuel Neri, an important exhibit that focuses on the latest creations by the world-famous California artist. Neri has become a household name around here; this is the third time in recent years that Robischon has presented a solo turn…
Collide, which closes tomorrow at the Emmanuel Gallery on the Auraria campus, is an elegantly presented and intelligently put-together presentation of some Asian-American artists who work in the region. The show was organized by participants Ken Iwamasa and Polly Chang and beautifully installed by Mark Masuoka, Emmanuel’s director. In addition…
A Depression-era board game invented to provide financially strapped folks with the chance to embark on vicarious — and harmless — voyages through the choppy waters of high finance serves as the central metaphor in Nagle Jackson’s A Hotel on Marvin Gardens. As a group of self-absorbed upwardly mobile types…
When it comes to dealing with the biblical question of who is his brother’s keeper, politicians blame the other party, theologians kowtow to the well-heeled while reminding them to help the less fortunate, and self-help enthusiasts consider the question confounding and untenable. Enter actor Laurence Fishburne, whose three-character Riff Raff…
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! The repressed Irish-Catholic schoolgirl Molly Shannon plays on Saturday Night Live is certainly not everyone’s cup of glee. But there’s no denying the tug she exerts on anyone whose past is littered with the dry husks of Latin verbs and memories of nuns swinging big rulers…
Insomniacs, rejoice! During the first several decades of Sydney Pollack’s bloated, interminable Random Hearts, your eyelids will droop, your pulse and respiration will slow, and you’ll get that $8 nap you’ve been craving. Once the credits roll and the lights come up, you’ll awaken refreshed, undisturbed by vague dreams about…
Am I a traitor to my gender because I didn’t find this unabashed film about female sexuality erotic, brave, or even — dare I say it — interesting? The ironically titled Romance, directed by the audacious French filmmaker Catherine Breillat (36 Fillette), has become something of a cause célèbre wherever…
There’s a long tradition of stories about mysterious drifters who arrive in a small town and either create trouble or catalyze an explosion of long-simmering problems. Mark Twain used that hook, as did Dashiell Hammett (Red Harvest), Akira Kurosawa (Yojimbo) and Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars). Now Hampton Fancher…
