Leave it to Hollywood to sell us the insipid romance of a thoroughly irritating white couple as the solution to an archaic Latin American mystery. As pure bang-up adventure, The Mexican is certainly more user-friendly than childish junk like The Way of the Gun, but the attempt to weave adult-relationship…
With In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-Wai solidifies his stature as the subtlest and most idiosyncratic of Hong Kong’s directors. In an industry best known for its accessible, crowd-pleasing comedies and action films, Wong has turned out a series of increasingly risky dramas that make little or no concession…
If high society threw a gala for homeless people each year, and the recipients of their charity were actually invited to the party, it might end up resembling Bag Ladies Ball, an interactive theater experience that’s the brain- and heartchild of local playwright/director Melvyn Benetti. There’s dinner, dancing and a…
The once-upon-a-time life that photojournalist-turned-author/mom Deborah Copaken Kogan — five-foot-two and barely two steps out of Harvard — formerly led seems unthinkably harsh: Her first major photography gig found her in the back of a truck in war-torn Afghanistan, wrapped head to foot in a blue burka, the only woman…
Until last year, Artyard, the grand dame of the local sculpture world, was the place to see rotating exhibits of monumental outdoor pieces by a number of noteworthy sculptors. They were displayed in a large lot on South Pearl Street, just a few doors down from the gallery proper. But…
The Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1513 Boulder St., 303-455-8999) is featuring the recent work of Karen Kirkpatrick, Michael Butts and Glenn Cuerden, last year’s recipients of CPAC awards. Part of the prize for that honor was this exhibit, which has been rather bluntly titled Members Awards 2000. The show begins…
The best thing about Black Box Theater Ensemble’s trio of one-acts, The Whole Shebang, is that the Boulder-based company has a good time without taking itself too seriously. That’s no mean feat in a drone-prone town that holds meetings about pet-guardianship and garbage-ownership rights. The three plays, presented at the…
A program note gives plenty of notice that A Question of Mercy examines difficult issues, and the first scene certainly sets a somber, thoughtful tone. However, playwright David Rabe’s look at AIDS and assisted suicide doesn’t hit home until the character of Anthony appears on stage for the first time…
It was to have been a routine stop on a routine press tour, yet another town in which the actress was to show up, chit and chat with the local media about her movie, then move on — the traveling salesman getting the word out, moving The Product. Denver, Dallas,…
Van Gogh was a lunatic who cut off his ear. Picasso was a self-absorbed cur who abused women. Warhol turned out to be a weird, desperate loner, Basquiat a doomed junkie. Try as he might, shriveled little Toulouse-Lautrec failed miserably at romance. As for El Greco’s explosive affair with that…
Most folks in Colorado could only watch with interest when the Westminster Kennel Club met at Madison Square Garden last week for the most elite of canine competitions. Though Westminster’s incredible parade of spit-shined dogs, groomed hair by hair and led around the ring by formally attired professional handlers, was…
Coloradans couldn’t have been pleased by a Benny Goodman anecdote that cropped up in Ken Burns’s epic documentary Jazz, which debuted on PBS last month. The time was the mid-’30s, when Goodman was trying to popularize swing. Then Let’s Dance, his NBC radio show, was canceled, and in an attempt…
There’s only a couple of weeks left to catch the current attractions at the Robischon Gallery: three superlative solos, each devoted to an internationally famous artist. In the pair of spaces bracketing the front doors is Robert Motherwell: Early Drawings, 1963-1976; in the pair of spaces beyond, there’s the smaller…
It could be said that the ILK @ Pirate space (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058) is a hole in the wall within a hole in the wall — or to put it more elegantly, an alternative space within an alternative space. Despite the limitations of a small, dingy room, more often…
When Another Antigone premiered off-Broadway in 1988, higher education’s radar screen was aglow with a growing number of issues that threatened to crash an already overloaded system. With funding scarce in the post-Reagan years, deans couldn’t motivate tenured professors to change their ways and, at the same time, couldn’t afford…
The Denver Center Theatre Company’s Much Ado About Nothing boasts some beautifully staged scenes and well-crafted performances, especially actress Robin Moseley’s bravura turn in the role of Beatrice. But while the visually pleasing production engages now and then, it adds up to considerably less than the sum of its parts…
Sometimes, usually out on the golf course near his home in upstate New York, Dan DeCarlo feels terrific, far younger than his 81 years. He’ll thwack the ball, reflect upon his 55 years of marriage to the same beautiful woman, and occasionally contemplate a life spent drawing and creating some…
Sara is quirky and free-spirited. That, at least, is the premise of the hilariously wretched new weeper Sweet November, of which Sara, embodied by the breathtaking Charlize Theron, is the heroine. But if you’re usually smart enough to run in terror at the threat of a movie character who’s quirky…
That anyone should consider making a film of Reinaldo Arenas’s memoir, Before Night Falls, is curious. That the person to do it should be painter-turned-film-director Julian Schnabel is truly unusual. And that the results should be as good as they are is most remarkable of all. It would appear that…
Jane Goodall is a hero to her fans, who will get a chance to see the beloved “Chimp Lady” as she stops in Denver as part of the Denver Distinguished Lecture Series. For those who have never heard her speak — or make chimp calls — the upcoming talk is…
Valentine’s Day falls just in the nick of time — ’tis the season when our gonads traditionally get fired up for spring, the season of procreation: You know, the birds, the bees, all that good stuff. But in the age when fast cars creep along the highway, bridled and bound…
You can always expect to see some of the best and most interesting contemporary art by local, national and international artists at Ron Judish Fine Arts, because director Ron Judish is relentlessly searching for new material — and he often finds it right in our own backyard. But the three…
