In the rich mythology of the New Yorker, a periodical renowned for the quality of its writing and the quirks of its writers, no legend carries more weight than that of Joseph Mitchell. On the occasion of the magazine’s 75th anniversary, it is currently great sport among the literati to…
You can bet your last kopeck that newly elected Russian president Vladimir Putin hasn’t so much as breathed Josef Stalin’s name while prosecuting an expensive war in Chechnya and setting his old secret-police comrades loose in pursuit of the new Russia’s capitalist bandits and money-launderers. In the former KGB agent’s…
Love & Basketball is divided into four quarters. Thank God there’s no overtime. The directorial debut from writer Gina Prince-Bythewood — who once penned scripts for A Different World and Felicity — is a film built upon transitions so weak and obvious it’s astonishing the entire thing doesn’t collapse on…
Although its themes are about as revelatory as those of an average Cathy comic strip (clothes don’t fit, job too busy, male not clairvoyant, AACK!), there’s something irrefutably charming about Philippa “Pip” Karmel’s debut feature, Me Myself I. The editor of the Academy darling Shine has scripted a laundry list…
Ever since early man and woman first shook their booties to a makeshift drumbeat on a prehistoric log, few cultural symbioses have been more elegant or innately automatic than the one between music and dance. But these days, some musicians and dancers say, that primitive dynamic has been dampened by…
It’s a good day for Steve Moore. The spring is glorious in Richmond, Virginia, where he lives, and his T-cell count is higher than it’s been in more than seven years — 437 three months ago, it’s now up to 672. Moore, a standup comedian who’s been stuck with the…
Some purists say gardens need no ornamentation other than that which comes naturally, but we know better. At Groundcovers Greenhouse & Nursery, 4301 East Iliff Avenue (303-758-8957), you’ll find a good selection of ornate cast-iron trellises and arches to keep untidy vines in line, along with a whole menagerie of…
Even if you have devoured every word about the cinematic adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel American Psycho, about a Wall Street yuppie obsessed with using skin-care products and devouring the entrails of prostitutes, you have not read this one particular fact. And it is a fact. No one…
The Colorado Photographic Arts Center has its offices and exhibition space in the Highland neighborhood in a rehabbed garage it shares with the Carol Keller Gallery. At first, Keller occupied the main rooms — converted mechanics’ bays — and the CPAC was in the smaller rooms that had been offices…
Some might suggest that John McEnroe’s American Standard at the partly face-lifted ILK on Santa Fe Drive is simply a late entry to the ceramics bee still going on in the wake of the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts meetings held in town last month. He uses…
Like a silky musical riff that beckons with the promise of discovery, Side Man pays homage to a bygone artistry that championed purity of devotion over shameless self-promotion. Centered around four jazz musicians, Warren Leight’s memory play abounds with soulful passages in which a young man tugs at the dark…
As the Acoma Center’s house lights dim, a techno-musical display fades to shadowy silence. Then a young man appears at the edge of the stage and, draped by a backdrop of thousands of stars, stares straight ahead while a disembodied voice intones, “What’s your history?” A few scenes later, the…
Rehab, sweet rehab. Last resort of the alcoholic, the drug addict and the would-be suicide. Free room and board, lots of tender loving care and a whole herd of fellow recovering screwups who’ll always be there for you, and are willing to apologize and admit their imperfections at the drop…
Where the Money Is is Hollywood’s latest attempt at a geezer vehicle — in this case, for Paul Newman. Despite his unassailable movie-star credentials and his still-handsome mug, Newman is faced with the inevitable dilemma of the aging leading man: Either make a film that appeals only to other oldsters…
It’s quite possible that American Psycho is a brilliant movie. It’s also quite possible that it’s a dreary, obvious chop-’em-up dressed in Alan Flusser suits and Ralph Lauren boxers, drenched in Pour Hommes aftershave, all to disguise it as bracing satire on the greed-is-good ’80s. The option audiences choose to…
It’s difficult to reconcile American perceptions of Iran, a rigidly authoritarian Islamic fundamentalist society, with the captivating and compassionate films that emanate from the country. Most of these pictures, including 1995 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’Or winner The White Balloon and 1998 best foreign-language film Oscar nominee Children of Heaven,…
One of the toughest women you’ll ever encounter, Paulina Cruz Suárez isn’t a cop or a firefighter or even a lady wrestler. For most of her life she’s been a maid, preparing meals and caring for the children of rich families in Mexico City. But her story, told in a…
The day the Goose knocked down the Penguin, my sister cried. The Penguin was her favorite player, but poor Ron Cey, standing in the batter’s box in the fifth game of the 1981 World Series, never had a chance against the 96-mph fastball that socked him in the head. As…
Even in the mildest of winters, there comes a time — late in February, perhaps — when you think you’ll puke if you have to look at one more leafless tree. In fact, the total absence of snow only enhances the unyielding, mud-brown plainness of winter in the Denver area…
Exhibition director Jason Thomas keeps up the pace at the Market Street Gallery@Guiry’s by putting up one great show after another. Right now he’s highlighting two talented artists who create sculptural installations that incorporate ceramics. On the left is Strands Pathways Gravity, featuring wall-hung and floor-bound sculptures by Denver’s Martha…
For at least the past hundred years, Irish-born playwrights have made it a habit to explode national myths by spinning stranger-than-fiction yarns of their own. Drawing his inspiration from the years he spent on the Aran islands thirty miles off Galway’s west coast, John Millington Synge tried to evoke the…
At least for the moment, the great (and greatly persecuted) Chinese film director Zhang Yimou has a new muse. Startlingly, she is a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl who has never before appeared on-screen, but in Zhang’s new film, Not One Less, Wei Minzhi manages to carry most of the freight once borne…
