With so many people staying home this winter, it’s virtually a public service that the Spark Gallery (1535 Platte Street, 303 455-4435) has been transformed into a vacationland of the imagination. In the front gallery is Being There, a selection of charcoal drawings and oil paintings by Barbara Shark that…
It seems every decade has its defining murders, and you can tell a lot about an age by which homicides grab national attention, how the press frames the crimes, and the ways the cases are disposed of by the courts. In the 1990s, it was O.J. Simpson’s alleged fatal slashing…
This is the true story of seven people (Tommy! Annie! Ashley! Maria! Griffin! Carpo! And Benjamin!) picked to live in a city and have their lives changed. Find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start being real. It’s The Real World: Sidewalks of New York. If you…
Although Behind Enemy Lines, a film set in Bosnia, was originally due for release next year, it already feels antiquated. That country’s conflict is now a distant memory, a ghost lost in the shadow of the war on terrorism. The film tested so well that 20th Century Fox pushed up…
‘Twas the day after Thanksgiving, when cash-strapped Ocean Journey Announced plans in the works for something quite corny. The seaweed was waving, the anemones wiggled, Knowing SCUBA-diving St. Nick would soon snorkle for giggles. The morays and mantas were snug in their caves While bevies of plankton danced through the…
People were shocked a few weeks ago when New York City firefighters and police officers scuffled during protests at Ground Zero; the firefighters wanted to continue digging out the remains of their brothers with full manpower. And while this spectacle was disheartening, there are some cases in which a little…
Only a couple of months ago, it looked as though Donald Miller had a publishing home run on his hands–a thoughtful, exhilarating, inclusive book about World War II scheduled to hit stores just as Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Band of Brothers was finishing its critically lauded run on HBO…
Last summer, the Denver Art Museum surprised everyone by announcing that it had received the Harmsen Collection of Western and American Indian Art as a gift. The locally famous collection, put together by Bill and Dorothy Harmsen, is made up of thousands of pieces ranging from important paintings and sculptures…
The Andenken Gallery (2110 Market Street, 303-332-5582) is presenting Works by Dianne Barnes, Michelle Barnes, Tracey Barnes, a group show representing two generations of the same family. The senior Barnes is Dianne; Michelle and Tracey are her daughters. Dianne’s work, a series of miniature garments and shrines in Plexiglas boxes,…
Making great old songs fresh again is one of the best contributions of contemporary musical theater. The Boulder Dinner Theatre’s production of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes reminds us why, more than sixty years after their composition, songs such as “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “It’s De-lovely,” “You’re the…
I approached Two Women Avoiding Involuntary Hospitalization: A Hormonal Cabaret with some trepidation. A few years back, it seemed all of the magazines and newspapers were full of commentary about menopause. Women bemoaned their hot flashes; experts prescribed various remedies, from meditation and soy to the universal use of estrogen…
The new Martin Lawrence comedy, Black Knight, is yet another twist, albeit an uncredited one, on Mark Twain’s protean A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, one of the original fish-out-of-water comedy-fantasies. Was there an outcry for yet another redo? After all, Twain’s 1889 novel, about a New England mechanic…
A writer of sociopolitical depth far beyond his thirty years, PEN/Hemingway Award-winner Akhil Sharma says he looks to “bad” writers — “the ones where you can see most easily what they’re attempting to do” — for inspiration and instruction. One example: Ernest Hemingway himself, namesake of Sharma’s prestigious literary award…
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the most-anticipated holiday flick of the year. Friday’s opening will unleash an outpouring of Harrysteria and related merchandise. So that you’re not left wasting away in Muggleville, get prepared with this modest Potter quiz. 1. Harry got his scar from: a. An encounter…
Cydney Payton, director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, feels that the museum’s facility in Sakura Square is too cramped — and who could disagree? As she points out, the space also has a lot of environmental problems: Sunlight streams annoyingly into the galleries, producing glare and uneven lighting; there…
Although Go Fish! (see page 67) fills the first floor at the Museum of Contemporary Art, there’s another show in the gallery upstairs. What do you see when you look over there? (2000 Cooley, East Palo Alto, California) is a photo-based installation by Galia Shapira, an Israeli artist living in…
Song, dance, dialogue, story, spectacle: These are the several pleasures of the American musical and, decade by decade, one or another of them moves into prominence. In the ’30s and ’40s, most musicals consisted of a string of comic or melodious songs, with whisper-thin plots holding them together. Then came…
It takes a nimble mind to mix light and dark, to wed humor with treachery. In Novocaine, newcomer David Atkins is not always up to the task. Neither is Steve Martin, who wants to be taken seriously while reserving the right to produce the occasional sick yuk. If you still…
If you believe in magic, you’ll love Harry Potter and the Sorcerer¹s Stone. And if you don’t, you will, and you will. True, the hype has been a bit much. And, yes, a mad, desperate world choked with reproduction and reprobation could hardly be expected to resist such a high-concept…
Robert wasn’t a man of many words. In fact, he tended to repeat himself over and over and over. Still, what he said long ago in his scratchy, singsong voice stills resonates: “I am Robert Robot, mechanical man/Drive me and steer me/Wherever you can.” The sixteen-inch-high red-and-silver toy, modeled on…
Colorado’s virtual Women of the West Museum can be accessed only by computer, but its commitment to the interactive spread of knowledge and culture doesn’t stop online. WOW has become involved in artist/youth mentoring programs and has released Expanded Visions: Four Women Artists Print the West, a portfolio featuring diverse…
It is no exaggeration to say that Denver’s entire art landscape changed for the better last week when Ron Judish Fine Arts cut the ribbon on its new and unbelievably grand gallery in Highland. The gallery had been located on Wazee Street in LoDo before shutting down in the middle…
