Weekly Agenda: Miracles! Magic! Wizards!

Three words: Insane Clown Posse. Need three more? Pure motherfuckin’ magic. It ain’t easy being ICP—except that it really is. Defended by a legion of dutiful fans, decorated by platinum records and gold chains, ICP’s Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J sit high atop a mountain of merchandise and profits. The bottom line is a big fat number, and even if mainstream acceptance never comes (as it likely won’t), there’s not much that any critic can say to change that. The only thing anybody really has over ICP? Knowing how magnets work.

Juggalos, Juggalettes, and their parents will descend on the Fillmore Auditorium this Monday, and that’s just the icing on the evening. The cake of it includes tourmates—savor it—Kottonmouth Kings, Coolio, Kittie, and rapper Necro. We know just what everyone’s thinking, and we don’t disagree. The festival show will indeed be an interesting anthropological study on deviant social circles among middle-class American youth. So, who’s up for some beers and ethnographic research?

Another head case: Comedian Mitch Fatel performs tonight through Saturday at the Denver Improv, and he’s kind of mentally challenged. That’s what his soft, slightly pitched lisp and onstage fidgeting would imply—except that it doesn’t. Fatel isn’t actually challenged (not in a textbook way), it’s just part of the act. He uses his boyish guise and aw-shucks delivery to get away with as much as he can. Like with this joke: “I love having a penis. Having a penis is like having a friend that always wants to play.” Fatel somehow comes off as more Leave It To Beaver than Dice Clay, which can be both kind of annoying and really funny.

Like when people talk out loud during movies. The Mile High Sci-Fi guys screen Alien Nation this weekend at the Starz FilmCenter, and that’s pretty much their whole shtick: mics in hand, back of the theater, breaking down an ’80s sort-of classic, and revamping it as an even more ridiculous (and fun) experience. Also at the FilmCenter, this Friday and Saturday at The Watching Hour: wizards! Stunt Rock is a mock rock doc about the very real Sorcery, a ’70s prog-metal act big into fantasy battles and pyrotechnic stage shows. Explosions, car chases, and other death-defying stunts work their way into the thin plot as well. Then again, isn’t “absurdity bordering on bullshit” sort of the theme this week? It’s a fine line, and we’re almost always up for breaking it down.