BECAUSE THE EARTH IS 1/3 DIRT. The CU Art Museum on the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus is an unlikely setting for a blockbuster contemporary ceramics exhibit — but here it is, anyway. The show was curated by a committee that included museum director Lisa Tamiris Becker and CU art…
At first glance, Hidalgo seems to be nothing more than an old-fashioned, flat-footed adventure epic plunked down on a vast stretch of desert and amply furnished with the usual Hollywood conventions — a strong, silent cowboy on horseback, a couple of villains with nasty black mustaches, a killer sandstorm and…
Maybe the most amazing thing about the big-screen version of Starsky & Hutch is how much smaller it feels than its predecessor, the William Blinn-created, Aaron Spelling-produced cop series that ran on ABC from 1975 to ’79. Everything about this cineplex variation feels rinky-dink, like some extended variety-show skit that…
Of all the films directed by the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Effi Briest (1974) is probably the most literary (it’s adapted from an 1894 novel by Theodor Fontane), but there is nothing staid or inert about it. Using his customary command of technical skills and his uncanny empathy for actors,…
Full Frontal: Contemporary Asian Art from the Logan Collection. The normal stock in trade for the Denver Art Museum’s Asian-art curator, Ron Otsuka, is traditional styles, but he’s been drafted into doing contemporary duty by a gift that includes more than a score of pieces by Asian and Asian-American artists…
At the start of The Fog of War, the brilliant new documentary from director Errol Morris, we see a composed, sharply groomed and middle-aged Robert McNamara, preparing to brief the press on the Vietnam War. He asks two questions: first, whether the chart he’s set up is visible, and second,…
This Jew has spent several hours in the past week reading all four Gospels, as well as various supplementary (and often inflammatory) texts, upon which Mel Gibson based The Passion of the Christ. I’ve read the interpretations of scholars, the apologias of popes and the damnations of zealots. I’ve read…
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect midnight movie than Harold and Maude (1971), Hal Ashby’s subversive black comedy about the taboo romance of a twenty-year-old boy obsessed with death (Bud Cort) and a flamboyant 79-year-old senior citizen (Ruth Gordon) whose worldview is eccentric, to say the least. They meet…
Balance. On the West Ninth Avenue side of Fresh Art, the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development has paid for a tiny sculpture garden as part of the long, ongoing Santa Fe Drive beautification project. The garden, composed of a group of rectangular forms made of cast concrete that serve as…
It’s clear by now that Meg Ryan, the bubbly sweetheart of half a dozen romantic comedies, means to bring new substance and seriousness to the second act of her career. Witness the lonely New York English teacher she played in last year’s brainy slasher flick, In the Cut. In no…
Seldom over the course of a relatively storied career has Gene Hackman garnered sustained laughter in films billed as comedies. He’s wonderous at playing virtuous or wicked, paternal or pissed off, but never quite comfortable in the role of comedian. He may be an actor of uncommon range, able to…
This weekend’s second annual Golden Film Festival will feature a broad array of Academy Award-nominated short and feature-length documentaries, live-action shorts and animated shorts, as well as a selection of Colorado-made films. Sponsored by the Golden Resource for Education Arts and Theater (GREAT), the festival will be held in the…
Balance. On the West Ninth Avenue side of Fresh Art, the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development has paid for a tiny sculpture garden as part of the long, ongoing Santa Fe Drive beautification project. The garden, composed of a group of rectangular forms made of cast concrete that serve as…
The world can always use another documentary that makes a passionate plea against the death penalty. When a film takes us inside a particular case to show us how the system has failed to serve justice — how politics, errant logic, reactionary fear, classism and racism govern the use of…
It is so very nice when a movie completely outstrips the expectations conjured by its trailer, as is the case with The Dreamers. At first blush, this tale of three passionate youths caught up in Paris’s late-’60s countercultural revolution looked downright trite. Never mind that esteemed veteran director Bernardo Bertolucci…
Two sublime art forms will collide again this year during the eighth Denver Jazz on Film Festival at the Starz FilmCenter on Friday, February 13. Featured films chronicle the life of famed songwriter Cole Porter; jazz icon Jimmy Scott, who has been massaging tender ballads for more than half a…
Balance. On the West 11th Avenue side of Fresh Art, the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development has paid for a tiny sculpture garden as part of the long, ongoing Santa Fe Drive beautification project. The garden, composed of a group of rectangular forms made of cast concrete that serve as…
When the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team — twenty raw college boys — beat the seemingly invincible, state-hardened Soviets and went on to win the gold medal at Lake Placid, New York, the event was regarded, even in palm-lined Miami and iceless Honolulu, as the most amazing feat in U.S…
Viewers rightfully marvel at the colorful CG seascapes of Finding Nemo and the unique drawing style of The Triplets of Belleville, but when it comes to the actual plots of contemporary animated films, no one’s pushing the boundaries quite like anime auteur Satoshi Kon. Having taken a page from the…
The cult surrounding Cory McAbee’s surreal romp The American Astronaut just grows and grows — enthralled, you can’t help thinking, as much by the film’s inaccessibility (released in 2001, it’s still not out on video or DVD) as by the depth of its weirdness. So. Who wouldn’t want to revisit…
Full Frontal: Contemporary Asian Art from the Logan Collection. The normal stock in trade for the Denver Art Museum’s Asian-art curator, Ron Otsuka, is traditional styles, but he’s been drafted into doing contemporary duty by a gift that includes more than a score of pieces by Asian and Asian-American artists…
Surf’s up. Palm trees sway invitingly in the breeze. The sparkling beaches are amply decorated with bikini babes and hard-body surfer dudes. Everybody has a nice cold drink with a wedge of fresh lime in it. Viewed that way, The Big Bounce is as alluring a midwinter pitch for the…
