George Bernard Shaw was an iconoclast and troublemaker. In his plays, moral and intellectual combat tend to replace action, but the dialogue is so brilliant that the results are engaging rather than static. Plot isn’t central, nor is strict continuity. In Mrs. Warren¹s Profession, a gun makes an appearance but…
Theater is an art form capable of providing an astonishing variety of experiences. There are directors throughout the metro area transforming cramped, unlikely spaces and making magic with nothing more than a few dollars, a handful of actors, a decent script and some imagination. And then there’s Disney’s Beauty and…
Before he was editor in chief at Marvel Comics–which, by all rights, makes him the man who tells Spider-Man what he can do with himself and the X-Men where to go–Joe Quesada illustrated a comic book titled Ash. The title did not last long; there was, perhaps, little market for…
Combine teenage angst with suburban emptiness and you’ve got a movie formula with an appreciable advantage over some other current movie formulas — particularly in the eyes of those who believe the American family has disintegrated and most of us are headed for eternal damnation. This is not to say…
This may be a strange time to release a thriller about the dangers of corrupt law enforcement, but Training Day — with no explosions, no cheap thrills, no international conspiracies — is about as distant from current East Coast realities as possible. Still, that doesn’t mean it qualifies as escapism…
The most common job for professional handymen these days? Fixing all those home-improvement projects that amateur handymen have botched in their own homes. “That’s probably 50 percent of our business, fixing things that people make a mistake on because it looks so darn simple,” says Andy Bell, president of Handyman…
Forget about the buzz over Whatchamacallit Stadium. Ignore the pull toward The Can where the Avs will see if they can once again win the Stanley Cup. And gaze not at the melancholy of Coors Field, where the Rockies are having a rocky time of it. Now it’s the time…
The modern and contemporary department at the Denver Art Museum has essentially been on a forced retreat for the last year or so. Pushed out of the spacious Stanton rooms on the first floor in order to make room for various traveling blockbusters, the department has had to deal with…
Lisa Spivak, director of the Phillip J. Steele Gallery (6875 East Evans Avenue, 303-753-6046), has long made an art form out of getting the most from the least. You see, until a month or so ago, the Steele was little more than a corner of the lobby in the design…
The Everyman Theatre Company’s production of Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz reminds us that theater isn’t necessarily about expensive sets and whizbang lighting, lavish costumes, a full orchestra or a plush auditorium. All it takes is ingenuity, talented actors and the right words. Everyman has colonized what must once have…
Rene Balcer, like you and everyone you know, can’t stop talking about what we now refer to simply as The Attack. We may resume our lives, fall back into our routine until it again feels mundane and comforting, but sooner or later, The Attack becomes the only topic of conversation…
The cynic may notice only how Hearts in Atlantis plays like a Stephen King best-of compilation, a reheating of familiar stories and favorite themes. At times it feels so much like Stand by Me — with its nostalgic flashback tale of cherubs and bullies accompanied by sad and weary narration…
If you were to hear that Our Lady of the Assassins is one of the most genuinely shocking films you’ll ever see, what would that suggest to you? Some new level of extreme violence and explicit sex, no doubt. But that’s not what’s at play in this eerily cool melodrama…
The Denver gay-and-lesbian community will take a giant step with A Weekend in Oz, a circuit party produced by and benefiting The Center, a local gay-services nonprofit. The gathering couldn’t be timelier, says Center event director Michael Beatty. “It’s about community building together. I think we all need that in…
Just as they did in the weeks prior to his eleventy-first birthday, “the history and character of Mr. Bilbo Baggins” have again become a topic of conversation among those who pay attention to the world of Hobbits. But as September 22nd, the date of Bilbo’s birthday and that of his…
When I first got word of Soon Come: The Art of Contemporary Jamaica, a traveling group show now at Metro State’s Center for the Visual Arts in LoDo, I thought to myself: “Soon Come? Ho hum.” Rum’s what I think of when I think of Jamaica, not credible contemporary art…
There are four interesting shows going on right now at Edge Gallery, 3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173, and each is utterly distinct from the others. In the front space is I am not the same person that I was before, featuring a group of recent abstract paintings by Edgester Mark Brasuell…
The Curious Theatre Company’s Coyote on a Fence is an artful, high-minded attempt to address the issue of the death penalty. As I watched the play last Saturday, at the end of a week filled with fear and confusion, sodden with grief, it was comforting to be in a place…
On September 13, at 11:30 a.m., Bryce Zabel was to have met with USA Network executives about a miniseries he was pitching to the cable outlet. Zabel, creator of such television shows as Dark Skies and The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, had the conference on his calendar for weeks. But,…
Filmmakers don’t get any more sensitive than Paul Cox. When it comes to jerking a tear or tugging a heartstring, this Dutch-born, Australian-raised veteran is a master. Just ask anyone who saw My First Wife (1984), in which a workaholic disc jockey falls to pieces when his neglected wife has…
The beautiful little conceit at the heart of Brad Anderson’s Happy Accidents is that audiences will sit still once more for the crackpot notion of time travel — and in a movie that’s not science fiction. To his credit, and with an implied bow to Back to the Future and…
Together is the second feature from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, whose 1998 Fucking Amal was shown in the United States two years ago under the title Show Me Love, renamed for obvious reasons. Together is an ensemble piece — a sharp, perceptive look at a Swedish commune in a suburb…
