There’s a historic tension between science and religion — at least between science and literalistic, primitive religion — and it’s become especially virulent over the last decade or so. The schism has never made much sense: Some religious people find that scientific advances only feed their sense of wonder and…
The Big Bang. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to think too much, to just settle back and watch a couple of frenetically energetic guys working really hard to earn your good will — and your entertainment dollars. Oh, and to make you laugh. The Big Bang posits the following…
There’s been a lot of talk about the burgeoning art scene in Denver, with dozens of venues featuring the work of hundreds of artists. The current culture boom is best exemplified by the strip of galleries that line Santa Fe Drive, an area that has been almost universally hailed as…
In the last twenty years, the “Built Green” movement has gone mainstream, with big developers such as ForestCity at Stapleton promoting the environmentally friendly features being incorporated into their buildings. But a generation or two ago, only kooks or visionaries thought about such an issue. Here in Denver, we had…
Breaking the Mold. In 2003, Connecticut collector Virginia Vogel Mattern donated some 300 pieces of contemporary American Indian art to the Denver Art Museum. For one of the special shows inaugurating the new Frederic C. Hamilton Building, Native Arts curator Nancy Blomberg has selected over a hundred works for the…
Bandidas (Fox) This review is not long enough for a suitable treatment of the beauty of Penélope Cruz and Salma Hayek. The makers of Bandidas would certainly prefer I tried, though, than to discuss this plodding cliché of a western featuring the two. You could write the script right now…
It’s been 20 years since the first Castlevania bewitched gamers with its gothic horror. Twenty years of vampire hunters going fist to fang with Lord Dracula. With almost two dozen titles in the series, Castlevania is one of the most enduring and beloved game franchises of all time. Castlevania: Portrait…
America’s Funniest Home Videos: Salute to Romance (Shout Factory) Behind the Mask (Good Times) Broken Bridges (Paramount) Color of the Cross (Fox) Conversations With Other Women (Hart Sharp) Crank (Lions Gate) Everybody Says I’m Fine (BFS) Good Morning World (S’More) Hello Kitty’s Animation Theater: Complete Collection (ADV) Live Nude Girls…
We Jews are known for moving. Throughout history, we’ve always been on pilgrimages or in states of exile; we travel to escape persecution and journey to promised lands. Intrinsic to our culture, the act and consequence of our movement provided the no-brainer theme for a brainy film series hosted by…
Look at any amateur photographer shooting a close-up of wet pebbles and you’ll notice that his instincts are — consciously or unconsciously — aimed at re-thinking the dimensions of everyday space and reality. Now add color enhancement, visual sculpture and any form of photographic construction, and you have more opportunities…
Actors and athletes typically decide that a music career is a good idea because they’re a) wildly popular/filthy rich and looking to capitalize on the branding of their own persona, or b) dangerously close to moving into the Surreal Life house and desperately trying to keep their careers afloat. For…
California-based political satirist Will Durst calls himself an equal-opportunity offender and a bi-partisan smartass; he once quipped that Democrats have less traction than a roller-skating giraffe on ice, and dissed the president by saying that a puppy-eating cobra could keep higher ratings in the polls. It’s no wonder, then, that…
Aspen is not all skiing and shopping and partying and beautiful people. Thanks to the Aspen Writers’ Foundation, the brain gets some exercise, too, with Winter Words — a series of talks billed as “Après Ski for the Mind.” When the AWF started the program ten years ago, it already…
“I would call it serendipity,” says Colorado Chamber Players artistic director and violist Barbara Hamilton, explaining how this month’s program came about. “About a year ago, I met Dean Sobel at the Clyfford Still Museum, and we realized we could have a great collaboration.” Around the same time, she heard…
The thing that surprises me most about Denver is how there’s a rodeo for every occasion. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t it seem like cowboys are doing their respective bucking and jiving every Secretary’s Day, full moon and third Thursday of the month? It’s crazy! Are these hoedowns…
As a Denver native, I take comfort in the unchanging landmarks and traditions that were part of the city back in my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ day — like the National Western Stock Show, opening this morning at 9 a.m. at the National Western Complex, 4655 Humboldt Street. In the ’50s…
Ullr, the mythological Nordic god of winter, has already bestowed his blessing upon us. Twenty-odd inches of it, actually. In an effort to pay him back, the kindly folks of Breckenridge will do what they’ve been doing since 1963 in the name of the Ullr: drink. Beginning today, Ullr Fest-goers…
Dying to get down to the latest Gnarls Barkley, but too busy changing diapers and cleaning flung Gerber off the ceiling? The only solution is to navigate your jogging stroller to the D Note, 7519 Grandview Avenue in Arvada, today and most Sunday afternoons at 3 p.m. for Baby Boogie,…
Why stick to the straight and narrow? CORE New Art Space is starting the year off with a certifiably offbeat duo: iconoclastic quilter/artist J.B. Wilcox, who prefers to call himself a fiber artist (although, as he puts it, he’s “technically an art quilter who’s sick of the ‘Q’ word”), and…
N on a Scandal, brilliantly adapted by Patrick Marber from the darkly comic Zo Heller novel, is a grim piece of work — Fatal Attraction for the art-house crowd. Set in a dreary London where a gray funk of fog and cigarette smoke hangs over everyone’s head, Notes fits perfectly…
Little Children, a second excursion into middle-class unease by Todd Field after his intelligent but overrated In the Bedroom, opens with a slow pan around a living room whose shelves are crowded with cheap china figurines of… little children. Twisted into insidious grins, their blood-red lips ooze a comic horror…
Movie actors of Nick Noltes clout (and gender) get to decide right down to the last wrinkle and half-ounce of muscle or flab how they want to age on screen. Nolte, weary and grizzled even in his youth, seems to have been prepping for his twilight days since 1976, when…
