MOVIES
If you’ve been wondering at the buzz for all the Asian martial-arts movies but haven’t yet found reason to go, “Unleashed” is your chance. It’s a thrilling and soulful combination of fight scenes and domestic comfort. The dynamic Jet Li plays a fighter collared as a docile dog for the nefarious uses of debt collector Bob Hoskins; when Hoskins loses a mob battle, Li is taken in by the quiet, artistic family of Morgan Freeman and Kerry Condon. As the trained attack dog slowly domesticates, we know his mob past is due a comeback. Artfully written and shot, “Unleashed” should find a new audience for fight films.
– MICHAEL BOOTH
VISUAL ARTS
Daniel Libeskind, the design architect for the Denver Art Museum’s $90.5 million addition, will present a free talk on the project at 6 p.m. Monday in Boettcher Concert Hall in the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. Because of the heavy turnout expected for the presentation – his first to the general public since October 2002 – tickets are required. They are available in advance at the art museum, 100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway. Any remaining tickets will be available beginning at 4:30 p.m. Monday. Doors open at 5 p.m. For information, call 720-913-0113 or www.denverartmuseum.org.
– KYLE MACMILLAN
TELEVISION
CBS has figured out how to make fans watch a padded three-hour block rather than dispense with “Survivor: Palau” in a single episode. The two-hour season finale, beginning at 7 p.m. on Channel 4, narrows the field from four contenders to two, and the jury votes for the $1 million winner. Then they stretch the suspense to the “reunion” hour that follows. The answer for viewers, of course, is a digital video recorder set on fast-forward.
– JOANNE OSTROW
POPULAR MUSIC
“Siberian surf-rock” with Los Angeles attitude overtakes the Lion’s Lair, 2022 E. Colfax Ave., on Monday when the Red Elvises headline with The Inactivists opening. Fronted by two Russians with rockabilly roots, the Elvises’ goofy, melting-pot rock ‘n’ roll has been packing Left Coast nightclubs for years. $8-$10, Ticketweb.
– ELANA ASHANTI JEFFERSON
STAGE
Denver playwright Melissa Lucero McCarl’s “Poignant Irritations” is an ambitious new play that should be considered in the same impressionistic way one mulls a Picasso painting. Persons and objects on the stage are presented not as they literally are, but as they are perceived through the filter of both artist and beholder. The result is a sprawling, two-person play that is intellectually stimulating and emotionally sophisticated. It is also disarmingly funny and surprisingly sensual. The final performances of the Mizel Center’s world premiere production are at 2 and 7 tonight, 8 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. May 22, at 350 S. Dahlia St. Tickets $18-$20; call 303-316-6360.
– JOHN MOORE
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Jeffrey Kahane, the Colorado Symphony’s newly appointed music director, will make his only 2004-05 appearance with the orchestra as a guest conductor next weekend. He takes over his new post in the fall. The concert will feature Olga Kern, one of two gold medalists at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Performances are set for 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. May 22 in Boettcher Concert Hall in the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. Call 303-623-7876 or 877-292-7979 or visit www.coloradosymphony.org.
– KYLE MACMILLAN
NIGHT LIFE
This week, “Ecko Thursdays,” the underground hip-hop party at Rise, 1909 Blake St., hosts rap legend Slick Rick, boasting “a classic live performance.” Few acts from hip-hop’s infancy epitomized foul-mouthed, gold-chain theatrics like those of Rick, who, as a British-born Jamaican, also personified the genre’s link to Caribbean “toasting.” A troubled legal history made live Slick Rick shows a rarity in recent years. If nothing else, this nightclub booking could be precious spectacle. Doors at 9 p.m.
– ELANA ASHANTI JEFFERSON
