Never mind trying to decipher the plot: If you really want to understand the Cirque du Soleil, open your eyes and shut off your mind. Forget your expectations and just be amazed, because, at its best, the Cirque is the stuff of dreams — a highbrow sports event delivered in…
The erudite and upstanding host of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, Scott Simon, has seen it all, firsthand, from El Salvador to Sarajevo. Yet in spite of his vast professional portfolio, when the quintessential news correspondent wrote a memoir, it was, loosely, about being a sports fan. But names can…
There’s a lot of gossip in the local art world. Some of the rumors don’t make sense, which usually means they’re not true. But I’m privy to one group of gabbers who wind up being correct most of the time. It’s hard to pinpoint the source of this collective commentary…
Mark Lunning is better known as an artisan — a master printer — than he is as an artist. But at the same time that hes been working with some of the best artists around at Open Press, his fine printing shop in Broadway Terrace, hes also been making his…
The artfully negotiated tug-of-war that takes place between mortals and spirits in The Secret Garden reaches its apotheosis when an anguished widower and his departed wife finally resolve to set each other free. Summoning a lyrical eloquence that occasionally surfaces elsewhere in the Town Hall Arts Center’s enjoyable production, two…
The only thing that prevents Accomplice from careening into farcical overdrive is the playwright’s penchant for backtracking over every plot twist and turn. A satirical hybrid that mixes the backstage comedy of Noises Off with the thriller instincts of Deathtrap, Rupert Holmes’s offbeat spoof is the final production of the…
For a moment or two, David Lowery — front man for the band Cracker, and before that, beloved college-radio revolutionary sweethearts Camper Van Beethoven — found himself enjoying the book. He laughed in the right places, winced in the appropriate spots and thought, for a moment, the book wasnt half…
The moody, feverish images that fill Running Free are so exquisite they almost make up for the film’s disastrous auditory misstep: the decision to cast Lukas Haas as the voice of Lucky, the chestnut foal that narrates this unusual adventure story. A cross between Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout and Jean-Jacques Annaud’s…
“Industrial-strength boredom” is a vicious term to unload on anybody — friend, foe or former actress. Considering the lingering discomfort the epithet inspires, you should be wary of its impact, even around a seemingly invulnerable producer returning to the screen to melt our hearts in yet another variation on the…
When the second annual Celebrate Colorado Artists Festival returns to the Denver Performing Arts Complex this weekend, expect a few new artists, a few improvements — and a lot more of the same. If the success of last year’s event, which drew about 45,000 people, is any indication, that means…
In 1991, author Jane Smiley presented A Thousand Acres, a modernization of King Lear that became a national bestseller and earned a Pulitzer Prize. Given the two-tiered success of this highbrow opus (nothing says “important” like Shakespeare), it would seem that Smiley’s natural inclination would have been to get even…
The show’s title implies that the art history we were taught in school — in which every stylistic phase appears in a neat chronological order — has fallen by the wayside. Now anything goes, as tight representational imagery is hung side by side with non-objective compositions, abstract sculptures are paired…
Potenza, Italy, is one of Denvers many sister cities around the world. But unlike some of the others, Potenza makes sense as a civic sibling, because a lot of Denvers nineteenth-century Italian immigrants came from there. In fact, the Potenza Lodge social club was founded here in 1899 and was…
lthough critics and audiences have been devout in their praise of upstart playwrights like Martin McDonagh, the recent Irish invasion of New York hasn’t left everyone breathless with excitement. In fact, more than a few theater practitioners claim that the sound of broguish prose is drowning out America’s distinct, native…
Michael Moore often worries about being seen–and worse, dismissed–as the plump, ball-cap-wearing windbag who barges into company headquarters, demands to see the chairman of the board, then gets kicked out or even arrested. He frets about being reduced to a stuntman of shtick, Captain Ambush, the guy called upon whenever…
Early on in Mission: Impossible 2 (or M:I-2, as the confident Paramount now calls it), hero Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) complains to his boss about his new assignment: “It’s going to be difficult. It’s not mission difficult, Mr. Hunt,” the boss icily replies, “It’s mission impossible. “Difficult’ should be a…
Brazilian moviemaker Bruno Barreto clearly has a taste for changing gears. In fact-based political thrillers like A Show of Force and Four Days in September, he casts himself as a second-string Costa-Gavras, rooting out state-sanctioned evil and the indiscretions of starry-eyed South American radicals. In his recent Hollywood period, Barreto…
Do not judge Shanghai Noon by its trailer, which serves as the very antithesis of advertising: It begs you to stay far away from any theater showing this film. Laden with dreary sight gags (a horse that stays by sitting…just like a dog) and woeful puns (“Your name is John…
Do you find yourself sitting around on Sunday nights (or any night, if you have cable) watching The X-Files and laughing at how many times Agent Scully screams for Mulder? You are not alone. The X-Files has grown from a quirky show centered around two FBI agents’ obsessions with UFOs…
Sam Arnold, proprietor of The Fort, is known for serving up historically accurate cuisine at his restaurant, a replica of the original Bent’s Fort. Committed to presenting “the food and drink of the Early West,” the kitchen specializes in such delicacies as bison tongue, marrow bones and rattlesnake cakes. But…
Denver’s Hue-Man Experience Bookstore doesn’t march; it meanders. And, as far as bookstores go, well, the whole place would fit comfortably into one little corner of the cavernous Tattered Cover. But Hue-Man’s sizable legacy — a long-lived commitment to bringing literacy to the African-American community — is its real strength:…
Some major changes are being wrought at the Denver Art Museum. No, I’m not referring to the new wing that’s set to go up sometime in the near future. Rather, I’m talking about the shifting staff in the Modern and Contemporary department. In this game of curatorial musical chairs, there’s…
