Richard III think the main problem with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Richard III is that it’s such a monochromatic production. The play presents Richard’s murderous path to power, his brief possession of the crown and his bloody fall at the hands of the heroic Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII…
Cell Block Sirens of 1953 Cell Block Sirens of 1953is a campy take on women’s prison movies — both mainstream and pornographic — which plays on the gleeful general assumption that these places seethe with sadism and forbidden sex. The play begins with a drumroll. Then we see Hope standing…
Like George Clooney says in Ocean’s Eleven, “Do the math”: four Canon XL1 digital cameras, one dual 800 MHz Power Mac G4, a copy of editing software Final Cut Pro 3, eighteen shooting days, a two-million-buck budget, one Oscar-winning Best Director and nine high-profile actors (among them Julia Roberts, Brad…
This time around, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan puts the surprise at the beginning of his film, and it’s a subtle, shimmering clue — one easily missed and, frankly, one that might not even be there at all. Such are the temptations offered by the maker of The Sixth Sense and…
A library book is a book with history. Check one out: Unless it’s a rare pristine volume that’s just hit the shelves, you know it’s been around — smudged covers, annotated margins, coffee stains and all. But still, you have to wonder what line a library book must cross to…
“You’re from Denver,” the white-hatted cowboy said as he started searching our bags. “You’re used to this.” Well, not this: “You got a gun in there?” he asked hopefully. At Denver International Airport, answering yes to that kind of question would get a traveler grounded for life. But we were…
Local trendsetters, unite — and hotfoot it to One Home furnishings store and design studio, because retro is cool. “Taking the mid-century stuff and fixing it up is really big on the coasts,” says Heather Mourer, owner of One Home, at 1036 Speer Boulevard. “I think that the furniture and…
Taking in Set in Motion: Tim Prentice at the Robischon Gallery in LoDo is a good way to escape the heat wave. Prentice’s kinetic scupltures are pretty cool, but they’re made even cooler (literally) by the multitude of fans the gallery has installed to get them to move. Between the…
A group of paintings by Warren Kelly have been brought together in a marvelous little show called panoramic: h. warren kelly, now on display in the associates’ space at Pirate (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058). Kelly, who’s lived in Denver for the last of couple years, is from Taos, and it’s…
Deborah Curtis gives a strong performance in the Nomad Theatre’s Shirley Valentine, and director Donald Berlin scarcely puts a foot wrong. But all of this talent presents itself in the service of a trite and shallow script. As the lights come up, we’re introduced to the Manchester kitchen of Shirley…
A Midsummer Night¹s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most successful plays, weaving together not only several plot strands, but disparate worlds: human and fairy, courtier and tradesman, Hellenic and Elizabethan. It’s magical, funny, good-humored with only the smallest trace of melancholy, and filled with sublime poetry. But it also appears…
If nothing else, give French actor Yvan Attal credit for his faith in domestic bliss. At a time when matrimony has a shorter life span than mayonnaise, Attal has sought to mingle the joys and traumas of his own marriage (to actress Charlotte Gainsbourg) with his piquant views on the…
Not much has changed in the ten years since Mike Myers used the Wayne’s World movies as a personal launch pad, and then tipped his James Bond-spoofing Austin Powers hand when he became popular enough to reap the rewards. Now those spy-movie sendups — with the major characters played by…
Wanted: the nastiest, most offensive-smelling kids’ sneakers in Denver. Such over-ripe stink bombs might be a plague to parents, but they could win the Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest, which stomps into the Children’s Museum of Denver on Tuesday, July 23. As part of its “Help Kick Out Foot Odor” campaign,…
They came, they pooped, they conquered. If you live along the Front Range, you’ll probably roll your eyes upon learning that the Canada goose was once hunted nearly to extinction. But it’s true: The honkers almost disappeared until their ranks were replenished in the ’60s through captive-breeding programs. In Colorado,…
At this very moment, members of the Television Critics Association are gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena, California, to preview this fall’s new series, interview those responsible for them and, finally, gorge themselves silly and drink themselves stupid on the networks’ dwindling dime. This event, the so-called “press tour,” takes…
Oh, I know, there’s that horrible hour-long drive. And not only that, but it’s been so darn hot. Well, too bad, because you’re going to want to make the trip to the Loveland Museum and Gallery anyway to see the sweeping Vance Kirkland Retrospective. But get moving, because this stunning…
The Wells Fargo Center (entrance at Sherman and 16th streets) is the masterful Philip Johnson complex downtown that’s been affectionately nicknamed “the cash-register building.” It is surely one of the very finest works of architecture in Denver. Recently, CommonWealth Partners, which owns the center, has redecorated the main Sherman Street…
This one’s easy to review: Just go see it. Oh, you want reasons — and I guess my editor needs a few more words. So here goes. From our first glimpse of the chorines in their glittery costumes and huge headdresses, we know that the Arvada Center’s Crazy for You…
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. — John Milton, Paradise Lost In Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, the mind — famously — gets a little help from other people. A man and two women find themselves trapped after…
There are a few dubious claims regarding popular perceptions of the life and death of Napoleon Bonaparte. Despite the legend, he wasn’t — at five-foot-six — particularly short. He was also more than just the sturdy product of military training in Brienne and Paris, considering that his Corsican mother adamantly…
Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking. In many ways, it’s just another cramped, dank submarine movie — bells, whistles, leaks,…
