A nice disturbing twist to the standard student/teacher affair story. Judi Dench is great as usual. The only downside is that I didn’t find the student character entirely believable. Otherwise it’s done well. That’s about all I can say without spoiling it.

I like the storytelling technique of setting up a cliché, then exposing the cliché as a sham. This is a movie takes down a bunch of them: the irredeemable junkie, the heroic schoolteacher, the drug-dealing thug, the poor but bright student, and the list goes on. Mostly the reality exposed is grim, but the film…

Husband and wife performers are always interesting to watch, knowing that we see the public face of a relationship that continues offstage. I had heard of violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman, but not his cellist wife Amanda Forsyth. We begin with only Pinchas conducting Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, a piece whose hushed intensity was…

I think I might have let this one pass as just a reasonably entertaining movie, but it incorporated a few elements that have extra appeal for me. One is the research station on Pike’s Peak where Nikola Tesla conducted genuinely mysterious experiments. The other is a philosophical conundrum I read about in I am a…

This movie has aged pretty well – I think I liked it better this time than when I first watched it over a decade ago. A man with a warm heart and hands that injure himself and those he loves is such a good symbol. Tim Burton puts him to use for some social commentary…

Our friend Pete invited us to this show at the Gothic Theatre in Denver in recognition of his birthday. I’d never listened to Pinback before this. Their dual vocals were the first thing I noticed. One of the two singers often sings in a punchy, staccato way while the other stretches each word out into…

Disney manages to not pounce on every single cliché available in every scene, and even manages a fresh line or two. The characters espouse decent values, and no one is composed of 100% Pure Evil. Their machinery for tear extraction is as honed as ever. It’s enough progress that I didn’t regret watching, but I’m…

This is our fifth performance by Olga, and by far the smallest venue in our local Edna Rizley Griffin Concert Hall. Our only disappointment is that there are still some empty seats. We’d hoped Fort Collins could pack this small house for her, but I suppose this is a reality of being a modern classical…

Too much going on right now for a full review, unfortunately. It’s almost sufficient to say that Olga is a force of nature, and we’re powerless to resist her. We’ll be seeing her again in Fort Collins on Oct. 6! The night’s program: Glinka Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of…

This is the band I dreamed of creating in my musical years. They’re odd, irreverent, and fearless of parodying anything taboo from sex to satanism. On top of that they’re great musicians with a solid foundation of klezmer and polka, and anything they can dream up on top of that. I discovered that they were…