President Clinton’s 1993 appointment of actress Jane Alexander to head the National Endowment for the Arts was seen by many as a healthy sign for the embattled agency. After all, Alexander had enjoyed a distinguished career in the theater and was the first actual artist to hold the post. But…
Apart from angst-ridden playwrights, hostile audiences and long periods of unemployment, the greatest challenge faced by a professional actor is the tricky business of sharing the stage with children and small animals. W.C. Fields made hating kids downright stylish, despite the fact that he began his own career by running…
If ever there was an “op-ed” movie–a movie destined to be written about in an “elevated” realm beyond just the movie pages–it’s Primary Colors. Thanks to Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, the Hollywood/Washington nexus has lifted this new Mike Nichols picture, based on the 1996 bestseller by Joe Klein, into…
Takeshi Kitano, the reigning Renaissance man of Japanese pop culture, is a scriptwriter, movie actor and director, as well as the star of seven TV shows. He produces six different columns for national magazines and, it says here, has written 55 books. In his spare time, he makes outrageous public…
We should be thankful, I suppose, for the headlong assault by assorted filmmakers upon the dark castle of Great Literature. For one thing, it reduces the need for college students to squander their hard-earned beer money on Cliffs Notes. It also reminds patrons in the sports bars that iambic pentameter…
Thursday March 12 The whole Megillah: The main protagonist in the Purim story–Queen Esther–was one tough cookie. It’s no wonder she’s such a great role model for Jewish women today. Her saga, recounted each spring by Jews everywhere, is the focus this morning at a special women’s Megillah Reading taking…
Last year, during a Scientific and Cultural Facilities District funding evaluation, Industrial Arts Theatre (IAT) director Phil Luna sat mute, listening to others debate the reasons why his nonprofit troupe should be awarded a grant. “There was a question in the grant application–does your company do works for underserved populations?”…
Vance Kirkland was the biggest name in Denver’s art world for much of the twentieth century. From the 1930s through the 1970s, he dominated the local art scene, not just as the city’s premier modern painter, but also as an influential art teacher and a powerful force at the Denver…
William Shakespeare was, above all else, a practical man. The sheer majesty of his verse notwithstanding, the Bard of Avon became the world’s greatest playwright because he told his versions of borrowed (some would say stolen) stories better than anyone else. Which is why those who would improve upon Shakespeare’s…
While Kate Winslet was having her diaper changed and Keanu Reeves was sneaking a joint into the prom, an extraordinary thing happened. A cast of actors who have nineteen Academy Award nominations (and five Oscars) to their credit and one of the most accomplished directors in America were making a…
How do you make a sequel to a film whose plot simply will not yield a logical successor? You can bet your bottom dollar that somewhere in Hollywood right now–hopefully not in the office of James Cameron–someone connected with Titanic is working on that question right now. Some things are…
Richard Kwietniowski’s first feature, Love and Death on Long Island, won’t be every surfer babe’s idea of a good time. But if you’ve got a taste for mordant wit, sharp observation and a whiff of personal liberation, step up and grab a ticket for this quirky, wonderfully surreal tale about…
Thursday March 5 Art for art’s sake: If only you knew Picasso like Lucien Clergue knew Picasso. The French photographer, known for his portraits of members of the modern Gallic intelligentsia such as Jean Cocteau and Roland Barthes, caught Pablo on film extensively over a period of twenty years, until…
People hang on to the junkiest stuff in their garages and basements–old tools, newspapers, broken bicycles. But members of the Colorado Independent Press Association stash a far more precious cargo in the musty depths of their houses: boxes of self-published books, the finished fruits of their many-sided labors. “I’m out…
It used to be that real estate developers actually had to have plans to build something new before the Denver City Council would let them demolish a historic building. But at the council meeting February 23, Denver developer Bruce Berger didn’t have to come up with even that much. He…
If you’ve always thought it takes an advanced college degree to understand and appreciate a play, El Centro Su Teatro’s charming production of When El Cucui Walks is precisely the play to convince you otherwise. Even though this two-hour-plus drama draws on Mexican myths and is performed in a mix…
The garish glow emanating from movies, television shows and interactive media has effectively dimmed the theater’s jewel in America. But rather than abandoning all hope and selling out to Hollywood, some dramatists are choosing to preserve theatrical traditions by writing plays that manipulate the electronic media. It’s an idea that…
At first glance, Jonathan Darby’s Hush appears to have a couple of things going for it. There’s some high-wattage star power in the persons of Jessica Lange and Emma’s Gwyneth Paltrow. There’s a possibly lethal power struggle between a possessive mother and the pretty daughter-in-law who’s snatched her sonny boy…
The new film Dangerous Beauty presents a sixteenth-century Venice filled with statesmen who hop from bed to bed without fear of “bimbo eruptions.” That’s because the courtesans aren’t bimbos and they aren’t hidden: Everyone from the admiralty to the bishopric patronizes them. Having developed their minds along with their erotic…
It won’t be easy for Joel and Ethan Coen to top Fargo anytime soon, because it was the culmination and pinnacle of a personal style they had been refining for years. The small-time greed, hilariously bungled deceptions and startling violence they brought to their tale of kidnapping-gone-wrong in icy Minnesota…
Thursday February 26 Chip off the old Monk: Following in the footsteps of the great pianist and jazz innovator Thelonius Monk isn’t an easy task, but it’s one that his son, T.S. Monk, an accomplished musician in his own right, handles with plenty of poise and style. It was when…
“Tentacle Piece” squats on angular, black steel legs, spewing prehensile canvas digits that hang in expectant stasis, waiting for motion. In spite of its greasy pulleys and cogwheels, there’s something almost endearing about the thing. But that’s not hard to fathom once you meet its maker. In fact, 23-year-old kinetic…
