#31: Christina Battle Video and multimedia installation artist Christina Battle hails from Edmonton, but now calls Denver her home. During her time in Colorado, she’s taught for the Film Studies department at the University of Colorado at Boulder and more recently at Metro State University of Denver, but primarily she…
It says something that two of the biggest sensations in young-adult literature over the past ten years have featured heroines who keep more than one guy on the line at a time. No longer do the genre’s bright young women sit around waiting for one Mr. Right to notice them…
Here’s how disastrous the MPAA rating system has become. How I Live Now, Kevin Macdonald’s stellar adaptation of Meg Rosoff’s uncommonly smart and insightful near-future young-adult novel, has won an R rating. The film is apocalyptic in the most literal sense, as in an apocalypse occurs, harrowing the characters with…
When your eyes are old, it’s hard to read the fine print. Add boredom, gullibility and desperation to leave some cash to family when you die, and you’re ripe for exploitation. In Alexander Payne’s endearingly gruff Nebraska, ex-auto mechanic Woody Grant (Bruce Dern, with a wild, white puff of hair)…
Who knew Jerry Lewis was God? I certainly didn’t. But it’s the unmistakable voice of Jerry Lewis you hear when God appears to King Arthur in Spamalot at Boulder’s Dinner Theatre and instructs him to seek the Holy Grail. Lewis doesn’t actually appear on stage, of course, but it turns…
Michael Burnett, the director of Space Gallery, is constructing a swank new two-story space at the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive to house his venue. A custom gallery is something of an exception in Denver, where most art businesses occupy repurposed storefronts in existing buildings. Space…
Catalyst. The beautiful grounds of the Denver Botanic Gardens are the ideal place to mount an outdoor sculpture show, and over the past few years, there has been one such presentation after another. This year, the theme is contemporary sculptors in Colorado. The pieces are picturesquely sited throughout in clearings…
Few men wear a dress as meaningfully as comedian Chris Lilley. Since 2005, he has sported the pinstriped schoolgirl uniforms of his native Australia to play Ja’mie King, a perfect little monster created by an ungodly mix of wealth, vapidity and cheerful cruelty. Ja’mie returns to HBO on November 24…
“This movie has been written about in books — go figure — and there’s discussion about whether or not it’s actually a zombie movie. And I can tell you it’s not; it’s not a zombie movie.” So says director Thom Eberhardt about 20 minutes into the commentary for his low-budget…
Rancho Mirage. The dialogue in Rancho Mirageis swift and clever and the characters are vivid, if not particularly deep or likable. But while the trials and tribulations of the three couples involved are standard-issue — infidelity, money problems — they’re presented in ways that are completely, off-the-map absurd. We start…
For all its nasty twists, the biggest shock in Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (opening November 27) hits in the movie’s first minutes — during the credits. “A Spike Lee Film,” a title card reads, a first for any of Lee’s features. Jungle Fever, He Got Game, Inside…
It’s been eight long years since the Xbox 360 launched, but the next generation of gaming has finally arrived. The PlayStation 4 debuted last week, and tonight, Microsoft lets loose its volley in the console wars at the Xbox One Midnight Release Party. Hundreds of gaming fanatics will gather to…
A Denver theater production that emulates a national TV talk show and is hosted by a Scottish comedian? We’re in. Winnie Wenglewick, the longtime writer, producer and director at Denver’s Dangerous Theatre, is launching the talk show I Want to Be Craig Ferguson, deriving the format and title from the…
The irrepressible Cora Vette (aka Reyna Von Vett), a grand dame of Denver’s burlesque scene, is revving up with a new show that conflates vintage and modern in a fun, fabulous way. “I was trying to stay within the classic framework of everything I’ve built and created in the burlesque…
’Tis the season for holiday shopping, and fans of local art will be thrilled to hear that Marie E.v.B. Gibbons is hosting a Mad Hatter Tea Party Trunk Show, featuring selections of her own work and that of her daughter, Haley Mariah Gibbons, at her studio. “It’s basically a little…
While an architect’s work is always on display in the buildings that he or she designs, it’s more rare to find it in a gallery. The American Institute of Architects Colorado College of Fellows is changing that, bringing together paintings, drawings and sculptures from more than twenty AIA Colorado architects…
There’s an explanation for the growing number of dudes sprouting scruffy ’staches this month: Movember. The national charity raises money and awareness about men’s health issues such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health through the faces of people across the country. Today’s Mustache Dache offers a place for…
The spuds will be sizzling when Temple Micah hosts its sixth annual Top Latke Taste-Off today, with aspiring chefs of all ages competing for such titles as Best in Show, Most Innovative and Best Traditional. “This is really an eclectic event,” says organizer Elaine Lee. “Six years ago, the event…
In 2010, Adam Lerner risked his career and his credibility to show a collection of 181 unverified, unauthenticated Russian avant-garde works at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, where he had just become curator. Tonight, Lerner and the institution celebrate the release of From Russia With Doubt, a book detailing…
Though Peter Samelson studied physics at Stanford University, he quickly realized that his real passion lay in theater and magic. Since then, he has traveled the world and worked on movies and television creating illusions and putting on magic shows. “The thing that sets me apart from other magicians is…
The answer to Paul McCartney’s famous question — “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” — should be resoundingly obvious as the crowd inside the Paramount Theatre erupts during the opening credits of Ticket to Ride. The latest installment from the Warren Miller Entertainment…
When Fancy Tiger announced earlier this year that it wouldn’t be hosting its annual holiday craft market, which had grown exponentially — almost unmanageably — during its five fabulous years, it left a lot of handmade-gift fans foundering, in search of somewhere else to shop. Happily, many other established markets…
