SAT 5/24 I should have seen it coming: When I was a kid, I watched Japanese cartoons such as Astro Boy, Marine Boy and Gigantor with the utmost fascination. They were weirdly beautiful to look at and never made a lick of sense, and I seriously couldn’t take my eyes…
SAT, 5/24 Interstate 25 is more than just a road in these parts: It’s also a vehicle for moving urban culture in and out of the state. As it bisects Colorado, it transports the ideas of myriad fine artists along a path extending from Cheyenne to Albuquerque. Gallery curator Jina…
FRI, 5/23 Partnership, the life and core of the Argentine tango, is a means of exploration for the artists of TangoMujer, an all-female dance ensemble performing in Denver as part of the 3rd Annual Memorial Day Tango Fest. “The girls alternate between leading and following,” says Scarlet Antonia, manager of…
It’s hard to believe, especially considering the budget shortfalls the city is facing, that the Webb administration just committed $3 million to demolish Skyline Park and replace it with…another park! What makes this situation so incredible is it’s happening at the same time that city-employee furloughs and layoffs are being…
In the front room at Pirate: A Contemporary Art Oasis (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058), Shovels, Brooms, Ladders And Rakes… features found-object installations created — or would that be assembled? — by Phil Bender. The literal personification of Denver’s alternative scene, Bender was one of Pirate’s founders, way back in the…
Ruthless! The Musical utilizes themes, quotes and various bits and pieces from All About Eve, The Bad Seed, Gypsy and doubtless a zillion other plays and movies I didn’t recognize. “Sing out, Louise,” a teacher calls to a child performer; a devilish child offers her mother “a bucket of kisses”;…
I can’t tell you how uncomfortable I was watching Brooklyn: The Musical, and how embarrassed. Embarrassed at having to witness this inane, dishonest, derivative piece of work, embarrassed for the actors performing it, and embarrassed for the rest of the audience — most of which, however, was whooping and cheering…
A startling new film from Iran, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad’s Under the Skin of the City, gives American viewers a rare and vivid glimpse of day-to-day life in contemporary Tehran — altering some of the politically based preconceptions we may have about the place and opening our eyes to a society that…
In March 2002, days before President Bush was scheduled to visit Peru, a car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy in Lima, killing nine and injuring dozens. Government officials here and in Peru blamed the attack on Shining Path — a Marxist terrorist organization with roots dating to the 1960s,…
Talk about tough acts to follow: The original 1999 Matrix, a critical and commercial smash, came almost as a revelation out of nowhere — if the combination of Joel Silver, Warner Bros. and roughly 60 million bucks qualifies as “nowhere.” After more than four years, The Matrix Reloaded — the…
One of the enduring curiosities of twentieth-century pop culture — and now 21st-century pop culture — is the tenacious hold The Rocky Horror Picture Show has exerted on audiences everywhere in America — and in some foreign countries, too — since its none-too-encouraging initial release in 1975. An outrageous spoof…
You don’t have to be homosexual to be hilarious. It helps, though. Michele Balan, Susan Jeremy and Eddie Sarfaty are three New York-based comics set to headline the Ninth Annual Comedy Gay-la, a standup comedy blowout to benefit KBDI Channel 12. While being a card-carrying member of the sexual minority…
Thursday, May 15 If you’re looking for something artsy and independent, The 30th of Baydak opens today at the Buntport Theater. It’s an original tale of a quiet, unassuming worker in modern-day Turkmenistan who is trying to create something meaningful in his life. Tickets for this dark comedy, which runs…
At first glance, there are few similarities between Fast Food Nation, the enlightening book that made author Eric Schlosser’s reputation, and his passionate new followup, Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. After all, the former peeks beneath the average hamburger’s bun to reveal plenty…
SUN, 5/18 As part of the third annual City Park Festival of the Arts today, Denver mayoral hopefuls John Hickenlooper and Don Mares will be the main attraction at a mayoral runoff forum. But their lovefest, at 11 a.m. in the City Park pavilion, could be overshadowed by a stealth…
SUN, 5/18 Nina is my darling. I want to take her home, but 800 square feet and four felines tell me that’s not a good idea. Instead, I visit her each weekend at the Maxfund Animal Adoption Center. She’s been there since October, and all she really wants is a…
THURS, 5/15 A nice thing about babies: They’re totally camera-ready. Even with their munchkin-esque faces screwed up in agony or anger, they’re strangely cute. But the image of a dewy one-year-old planting his or her face in a birthday cake is certainly a classic, and the well-kept family photo album…
SAT 5/17 They were different times, to be sure. During the psychedelic heyday of the hippie movement — when denizens of San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom (and Denver’s Family Dog) were rocking, not to mention floating sky-high on just about every drug in the universe, and scruffy kids…
SUN, 5/18 Among the 1.4 million individuals who regard him as an essential part of their weekend, This American Life host Ira Glass is officially famous: Since graduating from the tape-cutting room at an NPR station in Washington, D.C., where he began as a bumbling intern at age nineteen, Glass…
The signs of spring are everywhere: Flowers are blooming; the leaves are coming out on the trees, and the 2002-2003 art season is officially over. That means we now find ourselves plunged neck deep into the off-season. But don’t be misled by that designation; worthwhile exhibits will continue all the…
It’s hard to fathom what the Holocaust means now, used for political leverage and simplified into totemic symbols that short-circuit thought. The Holocaust was the defining fact of my childhood and adolescence, but it wasn’t called the Holocaust then. It was the war. The war encompassed a lot of things:…
After twenty minutes or so of watching Relatively Speaking, I stopped taking notes and began laughing. Out loud and several times. This may not seem particularly significant, but consider the fact that as a critic, I go to the theater far more often than normal mortals do — which means…
