The fine art of making fun of terrible films was perfected by the groundbreaking series Mystery Science Theater 3000. When that show ended, in 1999, fans had to make fun of movies on their own until 2006, when show writer and star Michael J. Nelson revitalized the concept with RiffTrax…
Did you die a little inside when Facebook’s Scrabulous game was removed from the site due to a copyright-infringement lawsuit? Did you rejoice when it returned as Lexulous? Does your entire family refuse to play Boggle with you due to your commodious and pervasive vocabulary? (And the annoying victory dance…
Early in Betty Blue, aspiring novelist Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) declares, “She was like a flower with translucent antennae and a mauve plastic heart” in so solemn a tone that it practically dares the viewer to laugh. And so it goes throughout this divisively fleshy 1986 opus. Betty (Béatrice Dalle), who…
An ending and a beginning collide today on the Hill in Boulder when the innovative and free-for-all Hill Flea debuts as both a traditional flea market and a “community edu-tainment playspace” where you can participate in workshops, swap athletic gear and recipes or watch artists at work. Continuing every Sunday…
Colorado is lucky to be home to Carrie Vaughn and Mario Acevedo, two of the freshest, most fun writers of urban fantasy around. And local author Jeanne C. Stein is right up there with them; while Vaughn’s protagonist is a werewolf, Stein — like her The Biting Edge blog-mate, Acevedo…
If you haven’t had a chance to get out of town this summer, here’s a quick trip into the past: Our Journey, a self-guided museum trek to the small towns of Colorado’s central plains, can ostensibly be completed in one day and maybe even on one tank of gas —…
“We mountain people, generally speaking, are connected to nature,” says R.R. Shakti, event director for YogaRocks! Mountain Fest. “Yoga takes us to an inner space and awareness of ourselves, and that same inner power and meditational awareness can happen in nature as well.” Hence the second annual YogaRocks!, which will…
Recycling, composting and relying on solar energy are just a few ways to make the earth a healthier place. But where to begin? And if you’ve already started, where do you go from here? The EarthWorks Expo has plenty of ideas. “We want everyone — no matter if they already…
The individual accomplishments of Gaye Adegbalola, Andra Faye and Ann Rabson fill quite a few pages. But among all their awards for songwriting, playing and even teaching, the three musicians are best known for comprising one of the most soulful and beloved acoustic blues acts in the world, Saffire —…
I love group shows, in particular those that are held together by a clearly defined organizational theme. At their best, these sorts of exhibits can lay out a broad-based historic, aesthetic or stylistic narrative — sometimes all three at once. But solos can also be superior because they give viewers…
Denver Artists Guild Founders. The history of the Denver Artists Guild — an early 20th-century group —- is little known, but it’s been documented in this show. The exhibit was organized by collectors Deborah Wadsworth and Cynthia Jennings, with a design by Steve Savageau. Wadsworth and Jennings identified 52 artists…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
It’s been forever since we’ve had really good, outrageous, dirty-minded, over-the-top camp in Denver — pretty much since Theatre Group gave up the ghost — so it’s a joy to find it back at the Avenue Theater in the form of Die! Mommy Die! Charles Busch’s play is a spoof…
At first glance, Somers Town seems gritty and realistic, what with its handheld, black-and-white shots of working-class London and a cast dominated by actors who wouldn’t look glamorous even after a twelve-hour session with Paul Mitchell. But the film is shot through with a deep streak of whimsy that infuses…
The aliens have been with us for twenty years already at the start of South African director Neill Blomkamp’s fast and furiously inventive District 9, their huddled masses long ago extracted from their broken-down mothership and deposited in the titular housing slum on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Unlike the space…
In the same week that the South African import District 9 gives us a Johannesburg beset by alien invaders, the latest film by animation legend Hayao Miyazaki envisions a small Japanese port town turned upside-down by visitors from the bottom of the sea. Loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The…
Margarita Blush, a European-trained Bulgarian puppeteer now living in Boulder, is a rarity on the Front Range whose magic touch transforms puppetry into an art form. Together with another local puppet master, Betsy Tobin, Blush plied this gift to create River Story, a unique take on Zlatka, the Girl Made…
Early in The Windmill, filmmaker Richard P. Rogers, whose never-completed autobiographical project was knitted together by former student Alexander Olch after his 2001 death, wonders if chronicling his life using footage shot over decades qualifies as “a kind of jerking off.” Attendees are likely to be divided over this question,…
Poet Drew Myron and artist Tracy Weil have collaborated on a variety of projects over the past twenty years, but Forecast, their latest work, marks the first time they’ve used astrology as a starting point. “I was reading a lot of horoscopes,” explains Myron. “Not that I’m an astrologist, but…
Jimmy Hogg, a Brit now living in Toronto, is more or less the king of the Fringe this year: In addition to hosting duties at the Boulder Fringe Festival’s opening-night party and helming the fest’s Daily C.R.A.B. late-night talk-show, he’s also a veteran Fringe performer who has a new one-man…
Part of being on the fringe – i.e., traveling the fringe-festival circuit – is surrendering to chance. With every venue, in every town, the vibe is different and the audience’s level of acceptance a roll of the dice. What’s lauded in New York might get a blank stare in Oklahoma…
Radoslaw Konopka, Christopher Thomas Gilkey and onetime Denverite Kristin Arnesen are Theatre Reverb, a Brooklyn outfit that’s not only familiar with the fringe circuit, but hosts the ongoing Floating Kabarette performance series/cabaret at New York’s open-minded Galapagos Art Space, where anything might happen, from aerial dance to neo-burlesque. Here for…
