Ed Ward’s been hosting open-microphone poetry readings in the Denver area for more than twenty years, and not without good reason. His regular Friday night readings at the Mercury Cafe adhere loosely to the Neal Cassady “GO!” school of anything’s allowed, and Ward says that’s what makes them special. Poets…
First Night Colorado’s been all over the place since its inception in 1988–the event migrated from the then-quiet 16th Street Mall to the old Elitch Gardens to the Colorado Convention Center. Over the years, there have been walkabouts, fireworks finales and kaleidoscopic festivities crammed together under one roof, but a…
Thursday December 31 It’s one year short of the millennium, but that’s no reason to stay home: This year, think of New Year’s Eve as a preview for next year’s blowout. There’s no shortage of ways to test the waters: Kids get into the act early at the Children’s Museum…
In the media hoopla surrounding the Denver Center Theatre Company’s 1998 Tony Award for outstanding regional theater, most theatergoers didn’t notice that the award was given for a body of work that wasn’t even produced last season. More to the point, the coveted prize (which is awarded annually by the…
Geniuses often come across unimpressively in the movies. Amadeus presented Mozart as a giggling fop. Both Kirk Douglas and Tim Roth gave us Van Gogh as a pathetic head case. I.Q.’s Albert Einstein was a cupid-playing old duffer. Ken Russell’s freaky depictions of Liszt and Mahler speak for themselves. When…
Best Ten Movies of 1998: 1. Saving Private Ryan. Steven Spielberg’s magnificent, harrowing D day epic is one of the great war movies ever made–and the most disturbing. Can The Thin Red Line match up? 2. Happiness. Director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse) returns to his native New Jersey,…
In 1933, producer Merian C. Cooper, director Ernest B. Schoedsack, and pioneering animator Willis O’Brien created one of this century’s most indelible and powerful archetypes: King Kong. Then they did a peculiar thing: As if appalled at what they had wrought–but also delighted at the money it made them–they spent…
Thursday December 24 Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow–or not. Snow or no snow, you can get in the holiday spirit without leaving the comfortable confines of your home (assuming you need no last-minute gag ties to wrap up for Uncle Ernie). KCFR-FM/90.1 will air Colorado Public…
There’s a new cowboy in LoDo, or at least part of one. In recent weeks, his image began to emerge on the side of a building at 1617 Wazee Street, bearing the inimitable mark of Western watercolorist William Matthews, whose high-priced and admired works reside in the gallery within. Already…
What are dreams made of? For Coloradans John Jancik and Ken Zerbst and fellow members of their Top of the World Expedition Team, they were made of little more than delicate tundra, sea water, ice and snow. The goal? First, the team hoped to plant an American flag on Oodaaq…
Theodor Seuss Geisel won a pair of Academy awards for writing Design for Death, a 1947 film documentary about Japanese warlords, and Gerald McBoing Boing, a 1950 animated cartoon. But he was better known as Dr. Seuss, the prolific author who launched a new trend in children’s literature with such…
Human beings have reveled in the mocking of solemnity as early as the twelfth century, when subversive subdeacons rang church bells improperly as part of the annual Feast of Fools and food-fighting choir boys mischievously sang out of tune during the Feast of the Boy Bishop. It comes as no…
DreamWorks’ grandiose attempt at an animated feature for adults is a flimsy musical about Moses–a Sunday-school filmstrip writ ultra-large and decked out with the spectacle of Hollywood Bible epics. Slender sermons nestle among flashy action sequences and diaphanous fashion statements from the more tasteful pages of the Nefertiti’s Secret catalogue…
At the heart of Pat O’Connor’s rich, bittersweet Dancing at Lughnasa lies the quaint notion that once upon a time, people–especially women–whose youthful dreams were dashed, even those who lived entire lives of quiet desperation, might attain a state of grace, a kind of ascetic nobility to which the rest…
The talents of Maya Angelou–she is or has been a teacher, memoirist, prize-winning poet, actress, civil-rights activist, editor, playwright, composer, dancer, producer, theater and TV director, and advisor to three presidents–range so far and deep that no feat she accomplishes could come as a surprise. Give this quick study three…
British actress Jane Horrocks is thrice-gifted: She can act, she can sing, and she can sing like Judy Garland. And like Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and a host of other legendary performers. Horrocks’s ability to mimic the singing and speaking voices of these artists lies at the heart…
Given the manipulative tendencies of many mainstream pictures, Stepmom could easily have slipped into a sticky morass of sentimentality and melodrama. Instead, it proves a genuinely affecting movie that approaches its adult themes with intelligence, maturity and rare authenticity. The film stars Susan Sarandon as Jackie, a divorced mother of…
Thursday December 17 Listen up, Colorado artists–here’s your last chance to strut your stuff before the jury for Celebrate Colorado Artists, an all-Colorado visual-arts show scheduled for this spring at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. The deadline to submit applications with five slides of artwork in most media is Saturday;…
“Sex, Lies, and Snow!” “Jingle Bells–Santa Goes All The Way!” So exclaim the posters touting the Theatre Group’s seasonally smutty production The Eight Reindeer Monologues. The play promises to be a surprise for audiences expecting a traditional representation of Rudolph and friends. This bawdy black comedy doubles as political satire–sans…
In the midst of celebrating Hanukkah, a time when Jews around the world commemorate perseverance, it’s perhaps fitting for the Mizel Museum of Judaica to hang a show of contemporary artwork culled from a tiny community of religious survivors. When Cuban Jewish Art Today! opens Thursday evening, the exhibition of…
Perhaps because of its majestic scenery, or maybe because the skies are not cloudy all day, Colorado has become, in the twentieth century, an important regional center for fine-art photography. What’s most remarkable about this wonderful state of affairs is that photography has flourished here in the near total absence…
Acutely aware that society routinely champions mendacity in matters of art, beauty and truth, the Lower East Side slackers in the musical Rent harbor no illusions about their place in the world. They’ll never be invited to place their names in the social register, for instance, or plaster their autographed…
