Folk music is supposed to be the music of the people. Yet at the heart of Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, set in New York in the winter of 1961, is a folksinger with no feeling for people. The Llewyn Davis of the title, played by Oscar Isaac,…
The marquee offering among the winter shows at Robischon is David Kimball Anderson: Altitude, the California artist’s first Denver solo. The spaces are filled with installations meant to evoke the journey of twentieth-century Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Viewers could hardly be expected to know this, because the references…
Clark Richert. In the few years it’s been in business, Gildar Gallery has mostly showcased young and up-and-coming artists, but with Dimension and Symmetry: Clark Richert, the intimate space on Broadway has moved to Denver’s big time, as Richert is among the best-known artists in the state. The show comes…
A Christmas Carol. The power of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol — and the reason it keeps getting resurrected in so many forms, Christmas after Christmas — stems from the depths of sorrow that underlie the joyously optimistic resolution. Ebenezer Scrooge lives in a London where poor people face the…
Here’s where I write about how hard it is to draw up a ten-best list at the end of the year. Except it isn’t: I think of drawing up a list as an honor and a necessity, a way of putting twelve months of movie-going into some sort of perspective…
I could write a Shakespearean sonnet about each film on my Top 10 of 2013, but we know we’re all here for the agreements and arguments. (Plus, have you tried writing about Joe Swanberg in iambic pentameter?) Ladies and gentlemen, let’s begin. The Act of Killing ― The year’s best…
In 2013, there were a thousand bright lights and no strong center ― even with Gravity, which ranked No. 8 on our tally of nearly 100 critics’ bests. results in this year’s Village VoiceFilm Poll, like the decisions arrived at by critics’ circles around the country, suggest that consensus is…
As awards season draws nearer and best-of-the-year lists keep rolling in, there’s only one thing left to do: get excited about what comes next. Here are ten films you won’t want to miss in 2014. 1. Adieu au Language (directed by Jean-Luc Godard) Jean-Luc Godard, former master of the French…
In Spike Jonze’s new sci-fi romance, Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays a divorcé who rebounds by falling in love with his smartphone. On a recent Wednesday, however, he’s a delinquent boyfriend, leaving his iPad abandoned on a chair in a Lebanese restaurant as he bounces off to the parking lot for…
For professional film critics, you’ll notice, the year in film tends to conclude prematurely. Those “Best Of” lists you see popping up everywhere around now have often been tallied, decided and finalized by mid-November — and in the web’s ever-harried race for clicks and page views, that date seems to…
The only common thread that ties the performers together at tonight’s Soundscapes+Performance Art+Live Art is that they all fall under the wide category of avant-garde, says facilitator Claudia Woodman. With a bill that includes Victoria Lundy’s ambient theremin playing, healing sounds produced by Of Earth and Sun on instruments handcrafted…
For some people, the best — and most frightening — thing about middle school was heading to the roller rink on a Friday night. Would your friends be there? Would they get along? Would your mom embarrass you? Would you be alone for the couples’skate? And while that nostalgia is…
Any casual Star Wars fan can tell you that the Force has a light side and a dark side. This weekend, the Denver Film Society is illustrating that split with two very different Star Wars films. Tonight, see the light side in 5-25-77, a film about a young fan who…
“There is this energy between pizza and marijuana and comedy,” says Sexy Pizza owner Kayvan Khalatbari. “Eventually, I’d like to have a venue where all three of those can coexist in a legal environment.” That’s not the case quite yet, but you’ll be able to find two of the three…
“I think the holidays are for families, which is great,” notes Denver burlesque queen Vivienne VaVoom (aka Michelle Baldwin), “but sometimes you want to step away and go to an adult-themed event. And that’s definitely what this is.” So if the sugar-sweet tone of the season has already got you…
Over the years, Brian Polk has learned that being a loudmouth isn’t always the best way to incite change. “We’re all a little bit older, and the machine has won — kind of,” laments Polk, the man behind Suspect Press, a new zine celebrating its release tonight at the Deer…
Mona Lucero and Lauri Lynnxe Murphy of the Powerhaüs Studio decided to wait for the last minute to throw their Holidayhaüs market, and there’s a reason for that. It’s because people just naturally procrastinate about holiday gift-buying, only to find themselves up a creek, with no alternative other than the…
The Winter Solabration started 28 years ago as a feast celebrating the holiday season, and has since evolved into a full-on party (minus the potluck). “We do a lot of the same things every year because people love it,” says organizer Chris Kermiet. “There’s a continuity to the event. We…
The sweet sound of more than 300 tubas and euphoniums will fill the air today for the 39th annual TubaChristmas Concert in Skyline Park, a gathering of amateur, student and professional players from around the region. “It’s a beautiful sound; tubas don’t play the melody in a band or orchestra…
Krampus, as you might or might not know, is the anti-Santa, a hairy horned beast of Germanic and Eastern European origins who takes care of all the naughty children by carrying them away in his sack. And because some people just have to be different, Mar Williams of the Concoctory…
While all of Boulder ramps up for the January National Cyclo-Cross Championships, the Dairy Center for the Arts is right in step: Its huge Bike Art exhibit opened earlier this month, and there’s plenty of bike-centric programming to go with it at the multidisciplinary venue, from art to films to…
Art Lande, Jeff Jenkins and Eric Gunnison, three of the best ivory ticklers in the state, will each play sets of solo piano tonight. It’s a unique chance to hear these outstanding pianists, who have shared the stage with many legendary jazz musicians throughout their careers, perform outside the confines…
