When a company puts out a press photo of its latest digital camera bathed in mud, then you know they’re not messing around. Not only is the new PENTAX Optio W90 waterproof to 20 feet, it’s shockproof, coldproof, and dustproof. (And mudproof, but that might just be a combination of…
Beaver Creek won top honors last week at the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) 2010 National Ski Area Safety Awards, marking the seventh year in a row Beaver Creek’s Skier and Snowboarder Responsibility Program has held the Best Overall Safety Program title.The resort’s 2009/2010 safety initiatives included Beaver Creek Safety…
Colorado artists have been making ceramics since the turn of the last century, but it wasn’t until the 1970s and ’80s that the scene here really hit its stride. This was a time when a group of artists whom I call the “greatest generation” were routinely producing world-class work. Luminaries…
Looking for the Face…. The half-dozen shows at MCA Denver are collectively titled Looking for the Face I Had Before the World Was Made. Adam Lerner, the museum’s director, acted as lead curator for the exhibits with new hire Nora Burnett Abrams acting as his assistant. Michaël Borremans is a…
Chicago. Sort of Brechtian, sort of Cabaretish, Chicago tells a story of injustice and corruption, and tells it in the most seductive way, with witty, memorable songs, elegantly glistening dance sequences and a smart, cynical and grown-up script. Roxie Hart is an evil, self-serving little hoofer. Having murdered a man…
Last fall saw the release of the documentary Walt & El Grupo, about Walt Disney and a team of his most talented animators trekking to Latin America in 1941 for both artistic inspiration and to act as cultural ambassadors for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was enjoyable hagiography most likely…
Writer Andy Diggle dedicated his snappy DC comic books The Losers to ’80s screenwriting superstar Shane Black, creator of the Lethal Weapon series. But in adapting The Losers for film, director Sylvain White and screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Peter Berg strain to achieve the pleasurable mix of cheap laughs and…
The Rainmaker is a gentle, dated comedy, well-suited to the generally older audience of the Aurora Fox, but it has flickers of life. The play, written in the 1950s, is set in the drought-stricken West of the ’30s, where a family of bachelors — kindly, laid-back paterfamilias H.C. and his…
Last fall saw the release of the documentary Walt & Grupo, about Walt Disney and a team of his most talented animators trekking to Latin America in 1941 for both artistic inspiration and to act as cultural ambassadors for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was enjoyable hagiography most likely to…
The Longmont Museum and Cultural Center has been toying with presenting a bicycle exhibit for a while. “We thought now was a great time. We were able to fit it in, and it’s a good time of year to go bicycling,” notes research and information curator Erik Mason. That’s how…
If you see only one apocalyptic bird-attack movie in your life, make it Hitchcock’s The Birds. If you see two or three, you could consider including James Nguyen’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror among the rotation. The first-time writer/director’s film is, in his words, a “romantic thriller” about a software salesman…
The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical In the Heights works on the simplest of levels: Great music, dancing to match, and an uncomplicated story that follows likably human characters through three days of life in New York City’s Dominican haven of Washington Heights. It all adds up to a classic show…
The first question most folks ask when they hear about Johnny Cupcakes is the obvious one. What is he? A baker? Some kind of drag queen? But, no, the legendary indie huckster makes T-shirts that he sells out of actual bakery cases in a store, a string of stores, all…
The Denver Filmmaker’s Co-op, a loose aggregation headed up by local indie auteurs Scott Banning, Jessica Lance and Johnny Morehouse, is ready to put the group’s name up in lights — sort of — by kicking off its hopeful Open Aperture Series, featuring a juried program of film and video…
Last year’s inaugural public vegetable demonstration garden, planted in Civic Center Park by Transition Denver, was such a success (not to mention a Westword Best of Denver recipient) that the concept should spread like, well, a weed. Under the aegis of the Grow Local Colorado Campaign and Denver Parks and…
More than two dozen restaurants and Colorado wineries are taking part in today’s Taste of Pearl in Boulder, a four-hour walkabout along the Pearl Street Mall that combines the three greatest pastimes on the planet: grazing, imbibing and shopping. A slew of downtown Boulder businesses, including Art & Soul, Common…
Lonie Paxton’s Active Force Foundation, founded by the Denver Broncos long snapper, is an example of how a bad turn can inspire positive change. “Lonie had a good friend who broke his back but wanted to participate in outdoor activities,” says foundation spokeswoman Judianne Atencio. “So they built this four-wheel…
How’s your knowledge of potions? Can you rattle off the names of all the star Quidditch players at Hogwarts without breaking a sweat? And what’s the magic word you’ll need to cast a summon spell? You’ll need to master all of that knowledge and lots more to stand a chance…
We know and love them for their swagger and their antics on and off stage, but it’s hard to imagine what life must really be like for rock stars. In Demolition Queens, the latest performance piece by Control Group, movement theater, spectacle and imagery are used as “an exploration of…
The fortieth anniversary of Earth Day, as we know it, arrives today at the hopeful end of a full-circle journey that began in 1970 with the support of back-to-nature advocates and a residual ´60s hippie ethos before sinking into a lower profile in the ´80s and ´90s. But a resurgence…
“We’re hoping to start a movement in Boulder to make herbicide-free lawns the norm rather than the exception,” says Randy Weiner, one of the organizers for today’s Boulder Dandelion Festival. “And the way to do that is to make it easy and show people that some of these weeds that…
Dan Nikolich, an engineer by trade, meant to buy only one pinball machine. He just wanted to fix it up, see if he could make it work. The process was so rewarding that he bought another. “I’m just going to buy one more,” he thought at the time, “and that…
