There is no way of sidestepping the issue, so why not jump right into it: Infamous, this year’s retelling of how Truman Capote wound up in Kansas writing his non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, never comes close to approaching the quiet, devastating brilliance of Capote, last year’s retelling of how…
The sex is real in John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus; only the setting — an animated New York cityscape, benignly overseen by a fluorescent Statue of Liberty — is fake. To an extent, that describes the movie: a sexually daring, dramatically timid roundelay that employs unsimulated twosomes, threesomes and even solos…
Barry Levinson hasn’t made a movie of note in almost a decade — since 1997’s Wag the Dog, to be precise, and even that was less a work of substantial relevance than a bit of lucky timing based on someone else’s better novel. Granted, it had its moments — at…
“This is a curated program of the best of the best — lefty video nonsense, fun and frolic,” says Scott Beibin (right), host of the Lost Film Fest, which makes three local stops this week. Philadelphia-based Beibin, who also runs Bloodlink Records, co-founded the fest in 1999 and began taking…
The daring Frederic C. Hamilton Building created for the Denver Art Museum by Daniel Libeskind and the Davis Partnership became an instant Mile High landmark when it opened last week. The same thing happened 35 years ago when what is now called the North Building, by Gio Ponti and James…
The often overlooked Emmanuel Gallery (Auraria campus, 303-556-8337) is currently hosting an important show called Treasures Revealed: The Art of Hungary, 1890-1955. To give you an idea of the significance of this particular exhibit, not only did the Hungarian ambassador come out from Washington, D.C., for the preview, but so…
Emilio Lobato and Martha Daniels. The solos that open the season at William Havu Gallery combine the disparate work of two of the area’s best-known and well-regarded artists. On the walls is Emilio Lobato: Desde Siempre (Since Forever), which comprises the artist’s signature abstractions. The title refers to Lobato’s self-exploration…
Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, first published in 1890, is a play about the havoc wrought by an out-of-control woman, a woman who’s torn and driven by impulses she herself cannot understand or control. Hedda combines a certain romantic magnificence — think Shelley and Byron, think Emily Bront’s wild, wild Cathy…
The Denver Center Theatre Company has staged a glittering, sumptuous version of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus that focuses more on a clean, elegant delivery of the play’s text than on the passion at its core. The central figure, Antonio Salieri, was the best-known composer in eighteenth-century Vienna, an upright man dedicated…
Cabaret. This musical follows a very young English chanteuse by the name of Sally Bowles, who sings in a seedy Berlin nightclub called the Kit Kat Klub in the early 1930s and meets up with an aspiring American novelist — the usual innocent abroad — named Clifford Bradshaw. She’s a…
“LUPEC just adores the hi-dive,” enthuses GerRee Anderson, public-relations representative for the Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails. “And the hi-dive feels the same about this party.” In fact, once a year, there are more than enough warm fuzzies to go around: It’s LUPEC’s Crush Party, and tonight’s…
Excluding any kind of vampire-sex fantasy, Denver’s only attempt at coffin fun takes place today as Six Flags Elitch Gardens, 2000 Elitch Circle, unearths Fright Fest with its first-ever Casket Race. A hearse parade opens the festivities at 1 p.m., and then casket-racing teams of two — one pushing, one…
Each year at harvest time, John and Birdie Balistreri and their daughter, Julie, throw a huge party at their Denver vineyard to release their new wines. Party-goers can taste more than twenty new wine releases, feast on hors d’oeuvre, wood-fired pizza, roast pig and desserts, plus enjoy live music and…
Louder Than Words Dancetheatre just doesn’t do things in the usual way — and its latest production, Nocturnography…of Waking and Dreaming, should be no exception. “We don’t do the typical dance piece, and then the lights come up and then there’s another dance,” notes company production manager Whit Ryan. “It’s…
As a kid, I swore I would never be one of those adults who keeps the house freezing and makes everyone put on another layer. Really, there are only so many sweaters you can bundle up in before you’re mummified on the couch. But with Xcel getting a rate hike…
There are a lot of ways you can donate money to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, but none of them are as much fun as A Catch for a Cause, which gives you the opportunity to bid on a fabulous date — and know your escort cash will be used…
If you can conquer a fourteener, why not a seat on the local school board — or in Congress? Since 1998, the Women’s Wilderness Institute has focused its activities for girls and women on the great outdoors, but those activities lead to changes indoors, too. “It’s been proven that the…
“We’re running the whole gamut with our workshops,” says Luann Pesonen, special-events manager for National Jewish Medical and Research Center. “A number of our speakers are dealing with beauty from the inside out, beauty and health, and there are just so many wonderful things to learn. How to eat intuitively…
Denver poet laureate Chris Ransick doesn’t believe in being all high and mighty about his position in life. Instead, his message is more evangelical: He just wants to spread the word about poetry. Trust him, it’s a cool thing. So when Ransick took part in the recent marathon recording session…
Everyone responds to war differently. Some show support by plastering ribbon magnets on their SUVs or publicly praying around flagpoles. Others protest with picket signs and pamphlets or by composing scathing diatribes on their blogs. But with All That I Have Lost: War in Poetry, Prose and Theatre, Colorado Shakespeare…
No studio director was a greater hero to the Hong Kong new wave than Martin Scorsese. John Woo dedicated The Killer to him; Wong Kar-wai modeled his first feature, As Tears Go By, after Mean Streets; and Taxi Driver’s rain-slicked slo-mo urban stylistics worked their way into countless lesser HK…
Among documentary muckrakers, Kirby Dick may not be as righteously indignant as Michael Moore or as brilliantly droll as Nick Broomfield, but say this for the maker and star of This Film Is Not Yet Rated: He’s not afraid to soil his hands to get the story. Rummaging through the…
