In all honesty, I’m a sucker for portmanteaus. Having based my decision to go almost entirely on that I just think it’s funny to combine words with other words, I really had no idea what to expect going into Operapocalypse at the Boulder International Fringe Festival — and wasn’t quite…
If the success of the Denver Modernism Show is any indication, Denver loves mid-century Modernism and its ruling principles of clean lines and futuristic thinking. All across the front range, we’re suddenly frozen in the headlights of Mad Men and all that rad retro style that comes with it, and…
For her 101st birthday this week, Mimi Rosenthal of Florida got her third tattoo — she got her first for her 99th birthday. And she’s not even the oldest lady to get her first tattoo. In 2009, Karen Fredso Larsen, a Danish retiree, got her first tattoo at 103. As…
That old reefer madness has us in its spell: The time is ripe in Denver for a revival of Reefer Madness (aka Tell Your Children), the 1938 anti-pot propaganda film directed by Louis Gasnier. The subject of various revivals over the years, now as a work of comedy, Reefer Madness…
Roller derby fans and skaters are celebrating the sport’s 75th anniversary this month, and tomorrow marks a return to the derby’s fairgrounds roots: Tomorrow, the Rocky Mountain Roller Girls are headed to Pueblo to kick off the Colorado State Fair, skating against Pueblo’s Jailhouse Jawbreakers at the State Fair Events…
The Biennial of the Americas has officially ended, but many of the associated exhibits are still running, in part because the Biennial was originally supposed to continue through August. Last month, at the height of the festivities, I took the high road with my review of the three most important…
Energy Effects. MCA Denver director Adam Lerner and architect Paul Andersen have put together one of the most important of the many Biennial shows on display now. The exhibit, with the epic title of Energy Effects: Art and Artifacts From the Landscape of Glorious Excess, begins outside the building where…
New York mag editor Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) travels alone to Cairo to meet her husband, who works for the United Nations in Gaza. When hubby gets stuck across the border indefinitely due to vague unrest, Tareq (Alexander Siddig), his former bodyguard, steps in as Juliette’s chaperone. Fluent in English and…
With a small, well-chosen cast, sly script and slippery, ambivalent characters, The Last Exorcism puts a welcome twist on the demonic-possession-movie revival. A fourth-generation minister, Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) of Baton Rouge’s Church of St. Mark was groomed for the pulpit. Onetime child preacher Cotton has grown out of the…
Elegant opening credits, written as if calligraphy on a wedding invitation, yield to a couple in blunt close-up — unhappy, interracial, tearfully celebrating their anniversary in a shopping-mall restaurant. After an unfathomable exchange, he presents her with an antique bowl found on eBay and, after reciting a guffaw-worthy litany of…
Since most of us cherish the romantic idea that true artists exist outside the mainstream, we’re intrigued by projects like the Boulder Fringe Festival, a no-vetting proposition with performances selected on a first-come, first-served basis or by lottery. I was so intrigued that at first I contemplated devoting a couple…
Garage Sale Loud: This Is It. Almost every summer, the folks at Heritage Square stage what is essentially a musical review with a thin sustaining plot line and the word “loud” in the title. The conceit is that T.J. Mullin and Annie Dwyer are siblings, and they’re reliving their youth:…
It may be called improvisation, but there’s a method to the madness of this art form. As a matter of fact, there are a ton of possible methods, and exactly fourteen of them will be on display tonight at the Boulder Improv Collaborative’s Improv Sampler. “This show is actually very…
If the closest thing you know to a foreign language is “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto” and the last ethnic food you had was at Taco Bell, maybe it’s time for a refresher course. Get both in one place tonight at University College’s A Taste of Languages, annual modern languages gala…
Forget sculpture that moves – here’s sculpture that races. Back from a dark, sad two-year period when it lost its sponsorship and, consequently, its longtime home at the Boulder Reservoir, the Kinetic Sculpture Race returns to form today in its new home, at Union Reservoir in Longmont. “There was an…
Pull out your bibs and wet naps, people! The Big Aspen Barbecue Block Party hits the streets of Glitter Gulch this weekend, fresh off the smoke of New York’s Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, an annual massive gathering of barbecue die-hards whose swollen guts and clogged arteries reek of pig…
The stories in Tales of an Englishman are about Matthew Taylor, whose one-man show opens tonight at Bovine Metropolis Theatre. “But the topics we always discuss in most stories are universal,” he says. “Different people relate to different stories because they’ve been in very similar situations. So that’s going to…
Here’s the thing, explains Lance Barto, executive chef of Strings: “Champagne has a stigma — namely, that it should be celebrated on New Year’s Eve and on special occasions with caviar, and the fact of the matter is that it goes just as well with everyday foods.” And that, adds…
In the immensely entertaining documentary Best Worst Movie, the now-grown child star of arguably the worst movie ever made — the execrable yet strangely entertaining Troll 2 — tracks down his fellow actors and the acerbic Italian director and crew of that disasterpiece while delving into its strange cult of…
Women love a man in uniform. And although we have to give police officers and members of the military credit where credit is due (thanks!), firefighters tend to push those two uniformed sectors out of the running when it comes to sheer sexiness (sorry!). Maybe it’s the rushing-into-burning-buildings factor. Maybe…
Green Spaces Denver’s first Green Route map, released earlier this year, focused on sustainable and eco-conscious businesses in the metro area. The second edition, to be released online and in print today, will complement the first by doing the same for local restaurants and entertainment venues that support green practices…
Event promoter Dana Cain puts on a lot of shindigs every year, but to date, none have been as magnificent as the Denver Modernism Show, an enormous flea market, juried art show, pop culture and design expo, tiki lounge and love paean to mid-century style and shlock that she stages…
