Let’s start at the very beginning, shall we? For much of the movie-going public, the 1965 film debut of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music marked the start of a lifelong love affair. Hot on the heels of her turn as Mary Poppins the year before, Julie Andrews secured…
The average first-time novelist would be thrilled if even one famous person said something nice about his or her writing — so imagine how excited Kathi Kamen Goldmark is: The jacket of her inaugural offering, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, includes rave reviews from best-selling authors such…
There’s a dizzying array of notable photography shows in Denver right now. And while photographs are always on display somewhere in town, it’s hard to recall an autumn with so many photo and photo-based shows as season openers. There are a number of reasons for this. During the past thirty…
Emerging artist R. Scott Davis lives in New York, but as an alumnus of the University of Colorado at Boulder, he still has ties to this area. In Chromatic Flux, now at the Cordell Taylor Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927), Davis explores the abstract potential of photographs, adding to the…
There’s something about the idea of separating the mingled good and evil within each of us that won’t let go of the imagination. Part of the appeal of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the early seasons lay in the character of Angel, the vampire with a human soul, the dark,…
Wear something silver. The 25th Starz Denver International Film Festival starts Thursday night at the Buell Theatre with White Oleander, Peter Kosminsky’s study of a girl’s harrowing journey through a series of L.A. foster homes; it will close ten days later at the Buell Theatre with Bowling for Columbine, political…
For more than two decades, Ron Henderson has been the heart and soul of the Denver International Film Festival — shepherd and shill, house philosopher and dogged troubleshooter. A publicity volunteer in year one and the festival’s director since 1981, he’s coaxed cash out of tight-fisted bankers, discovered cinematic masterpieces…
Good Lord, there hasn’t been this much yellow hair on screen since the Von Trapp children sang and danced their way across the Alps in The Sound of Music. The fact that these latest golden locks belong to the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn and Renée Zellweger suggests…
Some people have blah Sundays. Fans of motorcycle racing have wheelie-poppin’, rubber-burnin’, throttle-thrustin’ Sundays. And in a season finale this Sunday, Colorado’s Motorcycle Roadracing Association (MRA) will unleash more than one hundred amateur-class racers to tackle hairpin turns and jockey for position along the paved, 1.7-mile Second Creek Raceway. The…
Bigger is definitely better when it comes to the ‘dos on display at this weekend’s Mile Hi Hair Ball. The ball was inspired by New York’s Wigstock and Houston’s Wigs on Fire, says David Westman, who will host Denver’s inaugural do as NuClia Waste, the Princess of Plutonium, his drag-queen…
It’s no wonder the home-improvement business is going like gangbusters: People seem to be digging in and staying home these days. So, of course, they want to improve their abodes, which are becoming less and less like crash pads all the time. But even when you do the work yourself,…
During the past four or five seasons, a legion of exhibitions have been presented in the area that explore the rich topic of abstract art in Colorado. These shows, of both modern and contemporary stripes, have revealed the presence of an indigenous Front Range modernist scene — dating back over…
There’s a very smart-looking solo exhibit called Amorphous Unifiers at the Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173). Made up of a series of closely associated works by longtime Edge member Dania Pettus, the show is installed in the co-op’s front room. Pettus calls her pieces “photographs,” but that’s not really…
When a writer wants to explore complex issues, it makes sense to pick a simple format. Lee Blessing has set his 1988 play, Two Rooms, in — appropriately — two rooms and limited the cast to four. There’s Michael Wells, held hostage in a dank cell in mid-1980s Beirut. And…
Alone on stage at the Aurora Fox, working on a set designed as a grimy basement, actor Greg Price is in almost constant motion, shuttling between the phone on his desk, a wall intercom and the red phone of an alarm box adorned with a huge blinking red light. From…
I might as well just come out and say it: Spirited Away is the best movie I’ve seen all year. Though it would be a masterpiece in any language, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated spectacular (and Japan’s highest-grossing film ever) is being released by Disney in two versions simultaneously: one in the…
Ordinarily it would seem somewhat odious to put so fine a point on this, but what the hey: Gather up your gay friends, because here’s a movie they’re going to dig, dig, dig. Well, probably, anyway. That general demographic seems to be the target audience of the radical, whimsical French…
It’s Saturday, September and sunny: my last chance this year to trot my sorry belongings out to sell in front of our Englewood house. Early in the game, a Spanish-speaking mom shops for her adorable, plump little niña with big brown eyes. She holds up a pricey velvet top spattered…
Andy Friedman is no wannabe musician. But he’s taken a common hidden ambition to a new level, with a freaky twist: The freelance New Yorker illustrator and cartoonist (under the pseudonym “Larry Hat”) wants to play the blues, but the way he does it is a bit unorthodox. Friedman’s $12…
Discreet shifts have been taking place at 30th and Vallejo streets over the past couple of months. I’m referring to behind-the-scenes negotiations at the Judish gallery, located on the ground floor of the historic Asbury Methodist Church, a landmark in every sense of the word. Here’s what has happened: The…
Richard Colvin and Katherine Temple are longtime members of the Pirate co-op (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058), and every year since 1993, they have presented collaborative, site-specific installations at the well-known alternative space. This year’s piece, Remote Echoes of a Premature Past, is a re-creation of their debut installation, which was…
Dorian, the musical version of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray now playing at the Buell, boasts some of the finest voices I’ve heard in a long time. Unfortunately, everything else about the show is mediocre: It features stock characters, a dumb script, a pedestrian plot, some major…
