MOVIES
Angelina Jolie surpasses the promise of long-ago roles in “A Mighty Heart.” With grace and grit, she disappears into director Michael Winterbottom and writer John Orloff’s adaptation of Mariane Pearl’s politically compassionate memoir-elegy about husband Daniel. Dan Futterman is appealing if muted as the Wall Street Journal South Asia Bureau chief kidnapped then killed by jidahis in Karachi, Pakistan. Jolie’s performance will continue to be mentioned into awards season. But the beauty of this star’s turn is how emotionally woven it is into the lovely work of an understated ensemble (Archie Punjabi, Irrfan Khan, Will Patton). There’s poetry in that. Pearl didn’t write her book just so son Adam could know his father. She wrote it to help us all battle this age of fear.|Lisa Kennedy
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Olga Kern, co-winner of the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has become an audience favorite in Colorado. She returns to the state this week for two concerts. The Russian pianist will join the Rochester (N.Y.) Philharmonic for a concert at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Vail’s Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater as part of the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. Tickets are $23-$59. 877-812-5700 or vail Kern will give a recital at 7 p.m. Thursday under the auspices of Strings in the Mountains, a festival in Steamboat Springs. Tickets are $30. 970-879-5056 or stringsinthe|Kyle MacMillan
STAGE
More than 50 years after Sen. Joe McCarthy, Denver playwright Judy GeBauer’s new work, “Every Secret Thing,” ought to feel as historic as a “Twilight Zone” episode. Seriously: The FBI tries to muscle an eighth-grade civics teacher into spying on his fellow teachers? Ridiculous. Except it’s not. Instead, the play ripples through the years like a direct timeline to today. GeBauer’s play is in much better shape than most first stagings, thanks to a competent team from the Modern Muse Theatre Company. Final performances 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday at the Bug Theatre, 3654 Navajo St. (303-780-7836).|John Moore
TELEVISION
“The Loop,” an acerbically funny Fox sitcom that never quite found an audience, goes out in style with three episodes tonight, at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 on KDVR-Channel 31. Philip Baker Hall is a riot as the cranky boss, Mimi Rogers displays great comedy chops and Bret Harrison, as the recent college grad making his way in the corporate world, is a sympathetic Everyman. Catch it while you can, it’s a dry spell for comedies.|Joanne Ostrow
NIGHTLIFE
Mike Epps has played a bevy of supporting roles in films like “Dr. Doolittle 2,” “All About the Benjamins” and “Resident Evil.” But even when the Indiana-bred comedian slips into a leading one – such as Ed Norton in the all-black remake of “The Honeymooners” – he still flies a bit under the radar. Anyone who’s seen Epps’ easy, laid- back humor and spot-on impressions knows that’s an injustice. Epps plays Denver’s venerable Comedy Works Friday-July 1. Various times, $35, 1226 15th St., 303-595-3637 or
|John Wenzel
VISUAL ARTS
“We always like to work between the real and the fictional,” said Rosario Marquardt, describing “The Peace Project,” an installation she created with her husband, Roberto Behar. “This place could be real, but it’s also a fiction in the sense that there are different scales and perspectives.” The Miami-based artistic duo’s vibrant, fantastical creation remains on view through July 1 at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver’s Temporary Contemporary, 15th and Delgany streets. 303-298-7554 or|Kyle MacMillan
POPULAR MUSIC
Men would seem to have a lock on the hilariously overblown world of guitar shredding, but Marnie Stern knows better. Her Kill Rock Stars debut, “In Advance of the Broken Arm,” bursts with technical, face-melting riffs that would make Yngwie Malmsteen jump out of his leopard-print pants. Her style is more indie than hair metal, but that doesn’t mean she’ll show you any mercy. Behold the guitarmageddon Tuesday at the Larimer Lounge with Motheater, Team Awesome and MVP. 2721 Larimer St. 9 p.m. $8.|John Wenzel
DVDS
Earlier this month, a package arrived with a cover Sergio Leone would have appreciated: Our perspective is directly behind the holster of a cowboy, his fingers twitching toward the gun. In the distance is the silhouette of an equally twitchy gunman, his wide- brimmed hat set off against rolling red buttes. Who can resist this invitation to “The Sergio Leone Anthology,” with the four-star oater “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” at its fiery heart? Also on board, for about $60 online, are the other Eastwood/Leone staples “A Fistful of Dollars” and “For a Few Dollars More,” with “Duck You Sucker (a.k.a. “A Fistful of Dynamite”) thrown in for good measure. It’s quite a loaded magazine, full of Italian-interpreted Western heroics.
|Michael Booth
