First published under the title The Iron Man in Great Britain in 1968, The Iron Giant is a minor classic of twentieth-century children’s literature. The slim volume by the English poet laureate Ted Hughes is a pacifist parable in the guise of a sci-fi hero fantasy. Hughes spun his yarn…
One of our leading men’s fashion magazines runs a column every month titled “What Were We Thinking?” in which it presents a ludicrous photograph of a famous person dressed in what the magazine had earlier decreed a style that every hip cat would soon be wearing. It’s my guess that…
It’s always amusing when the movie industry discovers its spiritual side. Profoundly secular institution that it is, Hollywood promotes–at its peril–the notion that teenagers spewing pea soup in Georgetown can be purged of their demons by Catholic priests, that angels from heaven intercede in the lives of ballplayers from losing…
The year was 1965, and Danny Valdez was seventeen when he landed in Delano, California, during the thick of the first legendary union-generated grape strike, led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers of America. A different kind of strike, it had deep cultural roots in addition to a hard-line…
Thursday July 29 They say Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 isn’t often performed because it’s just so darned long, and even the most dedicated classical music fans have been known to squirm in their seats when that happens. But the faithful know that it’s worth it: When Maestro Giora Bernstein and…
It is one of the most nourishing, intoxicating and satisfying ways to spend an evening: the dinner party, where food is conversation and conversation is food, and secrets spill across the table as wine drains from the bottle. When the lights go up on the world premiere of Bernard Rands’s…
The Spark Gallery has reached a milestone: It has two decades’ worth of history under its belt. To mark this momentous event, the current members of the city’s oldest extant art cooperative invited back its founders, none of whom are still involved with Spark, and many of whom no longer…
Although it’s been more than forty years since West Side Story opened on Broadway, the landmark musical still has the power to transport theatergoers to unparalleled heights. Its combination of soaring melodies and frenetic dance sequences makes Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s 1957 show spellbinding in a way that often…
The ever-malleable topics of love, artistic creation and the end of the world are tempered by various forms of poetic justice in Summerplay, The Changing Scene’s annual festival of new works written and performed by artists with a Colorado connection. Although the trio of one-act plays varies considerably in quality…
Robert Wise’s 1963 version of The Haunting, from Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, has long been considered one of the milestones of horror film. Now, after 36 years, DreamWorks has bankrolled a new version, under the direction of Jan de Bont (Speed, Twister)–an idea that should sound…
Runaway Bride, the long-anticipated reunion of Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, isn’t a sequel, but it feels like one. In everything, there is a distinct sense of predestination, of events occurring according to some irresistible force of the inevitable. This makes life especially easy for Garry Marshall,…
Judith Schwartz moved into Warren Village with her two young sons in February 1974. It was a subsidized, live-in, welfare-to-work program for struggling single parents, and Janet and her sons were the inaugural participants in a grand experiment in human services. The first facility of its kind in the nation,…
Many Colorado Gold Rush prospectors of yore relied on the tenacious little burro–a small but sturdy equine that can surefootedly haul its weight in gold–to pack necessary gear through the steep, rough terrain of the Rocky Mountains. But that was then, and this is now: Though lots of the fuzzy…
Thursday July 22 One of Denver’s better cultural values–not to mention a great way to while away a summer evening–is Theater in the Park, which returns tonight to the open-air Greek Amphitheater in Civic Center Park at Broadway and Colfax. Show up with a picnic in tow, and you’ll be…
The Denver Art Museum has gotten good at attracting crowds. The blockbuster Toulouse-Lautrec, which just closed, brought in more than 100,000 visitors. And last year, the Berger Collection had similar success with a comparable attendance. Thousands of people also visit the various galleries scattered throughout the seven-story museum that feature…
These days, musical blockbusters are marked by their star-studded casts, syrupy storylines and truckloads of extravagant scenery. That’s why a fifty-year-old ensemble piece like Kurt Weill’s Street Scene seems destined to remain mothballed under layers of critical and scholarly acclaim. But in Central City Opera’s version, director Michael Ehrman’s character-driven…
Feel like shooting lutefisk in a barrel? Pick on beleaguered Minnesota again as the epicenter of everything that’s square-headed and unhip in America. Eager to let the world know that two plus two equals four? Take aim one more time at the vain stupidity of beauty contests. Drop Dead Gorgeous,…
When Denver’s considerable Japanese-American colony decides to throw a party, everyone gets involved. The epitome of community events, the Cherry Blossom Festival–taking place this Saturday and Sunday–has risen and set downtown at Sakura Square for 27 years, but not without the help of a whole network of elders, parents and…
Thursday July 15 While author and former Crusade for Justice member Ernesto Vigil’s first-hand account The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government’s War on Dissent is a look back at a notable page in Denver history of the 1960s, the book doesn’t linger there: His profile of Crusade…
So you think you know Denver? You’ve toured the Molly Brown House, walked the streets of historic LoDo and ridden the Cultural Connection Trolley to Greek Town and back. Well, you ain’t smelled nothing yet. If you want to know the real story of Denver–not the dusty-cowboy mythology that the…
Unlike their previous efforts, which have blurred the boundaries between the disabled and the rest of society, the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League’s latest endeavor emphasizes those differences to the point of utterly transcending them. In what proves to be a magnificent theatrical achievement, PHAMALy’s regional-premiere production of the…
Consistently mixing amateur fervor with professional polish, the Central City Opera has long championed traditions that are as practical as they are sentimental. This summer marks the return of a trio of former apprentices, who have since performed with such respected companies as the Metropolitan Opera, Washington Opera and Opera…
