Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, died over the weekend of an aortic aneurysm. He was 71 years old. Jacques, who also wrote short stories and the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series, holds a special places in the heart of a certain type of nerd who grew up…
In the midst of Black History Month, it seems a particularly appropriate time to consider the plight of another marginalized group, a group that has been disenfranchised since the seventeenth century, has been historically oppressed by the U.S. Navy and, to this day, lacks the right to vote: fictional pirates…
The park and pipe crew at Buttermilk is a well-oiled machine after a decade of hosting the Winter X Games, making crazy stuff like Torstein Horgmo’s triple flip, Kelly Clark’s 1080 and Shaun White’s tight pants possible, year after year. And the best part? Each year, Buttermilk’s left with a…
Hot Throttle is a game — er, experience — from Cactus and Doomlaser, best known for, well, not really known for anything, but best associated with the weirder side of gaming. Case in point, the premise of Hot Throttle is that you play as a naked man who believes he…
When I talked with back-to-back-to-back Super Bowl Chili Cookoff Champion Kevin Richards just days before the Denver Zine Library’s 5th Annual competition, the Librarian wasn’t exactly cocky, but was armed with the sort of innocent charm that says, My Nonchalance Is a Cover For My Awesomeness. Which was fair, considering…
Few advertisements manage to be as enjoyable, or more enjoyable than, the show they interrupt. HBO’s new spot for the awesome comedy Eastbound and Down on DVD makes it look easy, with a ridiculous ad that is packed with all the humor and humanity you’d expect from a short film…
Valentine’s Day is coming up, and if you’re anything like us, that means you’re thinking up ways to make awkward passes at your co-workers, because we’re pretty sure that OSHA ruled back in 1997 that sexual harassment doesn’t count if it’s on Valentine’s Day. Right? Wrong — at least according…
It was back in 2007 that MCA Denver first made plans for a major show of new works by legendary Denver abstract painter Dale Chisman. The museum had just opened the doors to its brand-new David Adjaye-designed building, and Cydney Payton, the MCA’s director at the time, had asked Chisman…
As evidenced by the hideously protracted custody battles that seemingly arise every time two celebrities break off their romantic engagement in favor of stroking their turgid, throbbing sense of their own importance, large egos and small children do not mix well. Well, at least not if you care about the…
For those of you who work from your laptops (ahem), getting an Internet connection is a daily requirement. There are two companies who will provide Internet to your home/apartment here in Denver and a few types of places you’re likely to seek out if you’re looking to walk out your…
There are no plans to erect a statute to Robocop in Detroit, according to Mayor Dave Bing. There is, however, a Rocky statue at the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art after one was placed at the top of the Rocky steps in Rocky III. While it could be…
For all those who give pom-pom critters for birthdays, feel an urge to stick googly eyes on everything or just occasionally get a twitch to fold some origami, we bring you “Gettin’ Crafty,” where we feature a craft you can easily make with minimal supplies and limited finances. With the…
The course of a life, once set, is hard to change. Like ships through an ocean, we pass through time on the force of our momentum, able to make adjustments now and then but for the most part fixed and inexorable on the path we’ve set, helplessly coasting forward even…
The beginning of February is kind of a lull in the new release schedule, but we’ve dug through the crap to find some truly exceptional stuff this week. In fact, there are some things we’re truly excited about, especially Space Jam, which for whatever stupid reason we’ve held onto our…
Time for some Time-Wasting Video! Breckenridge-based Celia Miller, a star of the all-female snowboard film Let’s Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow, recently joined up with Ride Snowboards and Denver’s SixEleven Productions for the fifth episode in the Ride With Us weekly video series. Miller and the crew hit Denver’s Ruby Hill…
In one of the most ridiculous overstatements since Michael Bay got compared to an “abstract artist,” Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino offered this analogy on Friday, explaining to the E! Network why he’d be leaving The Jersey Shore after next season: “It’s like Michael Jordan. There’s only so long you can…
The 19th century Russian novelists have a reputation for dense (for many an AP high school student, nightmarishly dense) character studies, giant tomes that spend the majority of their considerable bulk methodically dissecting characters and mapping out how they tick — and of those characters, one of the most fascinating…
Collective Nouns and E. C. Cunningham. Metropolitan State College has a special place in Denver’s art world. Not only does it have the biggest set of visual-arts departments in the state, but it includes a mini-museum, the Center for Visual Art. These two factors only rarely come together, but they…
The Catch. Ken Weitzman’s play explores the well-worn concept of baseball as a metaphor for America itself, but in new and interesting ways. In the hands of Darryl Love, the boastful, charismatic player at the center of the story, the ball itself becomes a symbol, its seams stitching over the…
The theatrical release of the Oscar-nominated live-action and animated short films provides a fun peek into intriguing bite-sized cinema from across the globe. This year’s live-action entries are a diverse mix. The African-set drama Na Wewe is a rather obvious critique of cultural identity, while The Confession is a coming-of-age…
Fresh from Sundance, Miguel Arteta’s amiable Cedar Rapids is a mild comedy of embarrassment, set in the dark heart of Middle America and starring sitcom secundario Ed Helms (The Office’s obnoxious, angry salesman Andy Bernard) as Tim Lippe, a prematurely middle-aged man-child. Taking an airplane for the first time in…
The Eagle, directed by Kevin Macdonald and adapted from Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 historical novel, The Eagle of the Ninth, a best-selling tale of second-century Roman legions and youthful derring-do on the far side of Hadrian’s Wall, is a thunderous boys’ adventure of the old-school type: There’s not a female speaking…
