The talents of Maya Angelou–she is or has been a teacher, memoirist, prize-winning poet, actress, civil-rights activist, editor, playwright, composer, dancer, producer, theater and TV director, and advisor to three presidents–range so far and deep that no feat she accomplishes could come as a surprise. Give this quick study three…
British actress Jane Horrocks is thrice-gifted: She can act, she can sing, and she can sing like Judy Garland. And like Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and a host of other legendary performers. Horrocks’s ability to mimic the singing and speaking voices of these artists lies at the heart…
Given the manipulative tendencies of many mainstream pictures, Stepmom could easily have slipped into a sticky morass of sentimentality and melodrama. Instead, it proves a genuinely affecting movie that approaches its adult themes with intelligence, maturity and rare authenticity. The film stars Susan Sarandon as Jackie, a divorced mother of…
Thursday December 17 Listen up, Colorado artists–here’s your last chance to strut your stuff before the jury for Celebrate Colorado Artists, an all-Colorado visual-arts show scheduled for this spring at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. The deadline to submit applications with five slides of artwork in most media is Saturday;…
“Sex, Lies, and Snow!” “Jingle Bells–Santa Goes All The Way!” So exclaim the posters touting the Theatre Group’s seasonally smutty production The Eight Reindeer Monologues. The play promises to be a surprise for audiences expecting a traditional representation of Rudolph and friends. This bawdy black comedy doubles as political satire–sans…
In the midst of celebrating Hanukkah, a time when Jews around the world commemorate perseverance, it’s perhaps fitting for the Mizel Museum of Judaica to hang a show of contemporary artwork culled from a tiny community of religious survivors. When Cuban Jewish Art Today! opens Thursday evening, the exhibition of…
Perhaps because of its majestic scenery, or maybe because the skies are not cloudy all day, Colorado has become, in the twentieth century, an important regional center for fine-art photography. What’s most remarkable about this wonderful state of affairs is that photography has flourished here in the near total absence…
Acutely aware that society routinely champions mendacity in matters of art, beauty and truth, the Lower East Side slackers in the musical Rent harbor no illusions about their place in the world. They’ll never be invited to place their names in the social register, for instance, or plaster their autographed…
Its yearly appearance might be anticipated, dreaded or even lampooned, but Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol remains the quintessential holiday story about the transformative powers of love, forgiveness and redemption. Director Laird Williamson has an unabashed (and, among local practitioners, unparalleled) devotion to pageantry, mystery and grandeur; when these qualities…
Old-fashioned romantic comedies are an endangered species, and in these generally unromantic days, it’s always a pleasant surprise to find a decent one like Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail. Ephron, of course, made her bones five and a half years ago with the huge hit Sleepless in Seattle, but since…
The worst thing about French director Manuel Poirier’s Western–which was nominated for multiple Cesar Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars) and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival–is its title. Despite the strained attempts of the movie’s production notes to convince us of some sort…
On May 30, 1957, the Los Angeles Times reported that the body of “distinguished film producer and director James Whale” had been found floating in the swimming pool at his home in Pacific Palisades. Fully clothed, Whale’s corpse exhibited a head wound. “Whale,” the Times went on to point out,…
If you’re a true believer who scans the December sky for a man on a sleigh, take heart. You’re not alone. The Denver UFO Society has been conducting such work year-round for more than forty years. But while Mr. Claus’s followers cite presents under the tree as proof of his…
Thursday December 10 While the Avalanche isn’t exactly living up to its past standards, there’s another iced-up troupe at McNichols that certainly is. The perennial band of cartoon bladers in Disney on Ice hits the rink tonight, giving fans their annual fix of fun without the fisticuffs of Big Mac’s…
Since releasing “Light My Fire” in 1968, Jose Feliciano has been a part of pop-music consciousness. The tune, originally recorded by the Doors, became an instant smash and provided the basis for a career that’s still going strong for the blind guitarist from Puerto Rico. But while the cut’s star…
A couple of weeks ago, a group exhibit called Views of Solitude opened and thus served as the premier display of the brand-new William Havu Gallery. The show and, even more so, the gallery itself, elicited audible gasps from many of the more than 500 exhibition-goers who attended the opening…
Are the crystal-arranging rituals of gong-happy new-agers really any different from the solemn-voiced genuflecting that undergirds the world’s established blood religions? Does our willingness to profess unwavering belief–whether in the rock of ages or the age-old healing properties of rocks–somehow guarantee us a higher place in the grand scheme of…
On the surface, Beth Henley’s The Wake of Jamey Foster looks like a typical American dysfunctional-family play. In fact, before Act One is twenty minutes old, we’ve become acquainted with an undiscovered ectomorphic genius who makes a living cashing in beverage bottles; an insufferable financial type grown newly contemptuous of…
The relentless charm of Kirk Jones’s Waking Ned Devine lies in its embrace of two lovable Irish geezers who manage to work beautiful mischief on the world, in the raw beauty of their sun-splashed coastal village, and in the general notion that Ireland is the land of poetic conversations, enduring…
Ultra-tough-guy Jesse “The Body” Ventura says he means business as the new governor of Minnesota. But for now the nasty crime wave in that state continues unchecked–at the movies, anyway. Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan, a psychological thriller that shows us how dangerous life can get after three ordinary men…
It’s an annual spectacle, a seasonal ritual, a sight, all right. On December 3, some 15,000 colored lights energized by five miles of electrical wire complete the yearly zapping of good taste at Denver’s City and County Building. Legend has it that Denver is home to the worldwide tradition of…
December 3 Thursday National AIDS Awareness Day was December 1, but a Denver gallery is continuing its NAAD fundraising efforts through this month. Abend Gallery Fine Arts is serving as the agent for the late Mel Carter, a Denver artist who was active in the local fight against AIDS. Abend…
