October, a month of harvest moons and costumed goons, is upon us. While there’s perhaps no better month to take in the natural beauty of our fair state, the early sunsets and evening chill leave plenty of time for comedy. Fortunately, a bountiful joke harvest awaits leaf- and laugh-peepers alike this…
Wave goodbye to September, say hello to October and have a heck of a good time in the process. This weekend calendar is full of wine, dancing and some good old-fashioned funny. Keep reading for our ten favorite events that won’t set you back more than $10 (and seven are…
This week, our critics took to the theaters to review four new films. Tim Burton proves he’s still got it in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Mark Wahlberg guides us through a surreal tragedy in Deepwater Horizon, and we learn about music’s man behind the curtain in Danny Says. Here are…
Painter Mark Brasuell has been part of Denver’s alternative gallery scene since the 1990s. For most of that time he was a member of Edge Gallery, but a couple of years ago he made a surprise move to join Spark Gallery on Santa Fe Drive. He now has a solo…
#59: Ashley Frazier Ashley Frazier is all RedLine, all the time, continuing in her role as the art venue’s events manager while, as an artist, embarking on a two-residency there this fall. In her own work, she evokes the ephemeral passage of time, using such unusual mediums as human hair…
The techniques of verbatim theater go back decades, to at least the 1950s, when young German theater troupes would reenact complicated court cases word for word onstage. Even earlier, in the United States, the WPA paid for a form of this performance with its Living Newspapers, in which theater artists…
Set aside all human decency and imagine, for a moment, that you’re Kim Jong-il. Imagine it’s 1978, and you’re pushing 40, still Great Leader’s son rather than the future Dear Leader. You have yearned for years to create a truly great North Korean cinema, one whose films would be celebrated…
The conventional wisdom about early-career Tim Burton is that he was an imaginative visual stylist but not a great storyteller. That sounds smart, right? It’s still something that a certain kind of ratty-beard-stroking film critic keeps tucked in his sweater vest in case he needs to say something that sounds…
Deepwater Horizon is the most entertaining Hollywood disaster movie in years. I’m sorry — is that a terrible thing to say? Peter Berg’s film is based on the true story of the BP-leased, Transocean-owned deepwater drilling rig that in 2010 exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 souls and…
At September 29’s Punx in Solidarity!: From Denver to Standing Rock, the music will be fierce. The art will be bold. The food will be delicious. And the money raised will fund Native resistance. As the DIY artists, chefs and musicians organizing the event tell it, they’re far less important than the…
In northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, various Native American cultures stretching back to antiquity created distinctive works of art. Hundreds of years ago, Latino culture began to flourish in the area, establishing its own set of artistic currents. Finally, a century and a half ago, European-Americans came, and among…
While another a beloved Coloradan institution seems to disappear every week, the demise of the Flossy McGrews costume shop hit harder than most losses. From the storefront, embellished with Lovecraftian decorations, to the lovingly crafted costumes, the place boasted an overwhelming variety of spooky and strange shopping delights that made it a must-stop not…
The glory days of daily newspapers are receding in the rearview mirror, leaving behind legendary tales of the writers who honed their craft as reporters and editors. There are many modern examples of Colorado journalism greats – sportswriter Rick Reilly, network broadcaster Harry Smith, award-winning cartoonists Paul Conrad, Pat Oliphant and Mike Keefe —…
The Taming, a political satire by Lauren Gunderson, is the first offering of the Catamounts’ 2016-’17 season. The play doesn’t probe very deep, despite the reference to Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and a nod to Sartre’s No Exit. But it does provide some points to ponder, some feminist verve, a…
Jim Walsh noticed something odd. The clinical assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado Denver was researching the immigration of the Irish to the Rocky Mountain region during the Silver Boom of 1879-’93, the kind of work that usually leads scholars to musty rooms…
#60: Dustin Young Dustin Young is a master draftsman of the dreamy side of real life, depicting the imprint of found imagery in a shower of mist and perceived memory. A native Minnesotan off an academic trail that led him from New York to Boston to Lincoln, Nebraska, Young now…
In building the Mayday Experiment, I have to be constantly aware that I am not only building a home, but a quasi-public space. The house itself is also the art, and many of my design choices (such as devoting a large area to seating) reflect those needs more than my…
The mood was celebratory at the opening of the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s Ripcord, the first show of the company’s eleventh season, and also the first at the Dairy Arts Center after the building’s year-long renovation. Over the past twelve months, BETC has performed in the Boulder Chamber of Commerce…
America might not be ready for Fleabag, the new Amazon/BBC series from British writer and creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Think about all the guff Girls received for “forcing” viewers along on a ride with myopic 20-somethings. Waller-Bridge has gone even further than Girls creator Lena Dunham, speaking directly to the camera…
The first moments of Luke Cage offer much that the previous 38 or so hours of Marvel superhero Netflix drama haven’t: laughter. Warmth. A sense that the New York City that Daredevil and Jessica Jones mope and brawl through might be more than just a place to save — it…
In certain circles, fantastic facial hair is an art-form, resulting in carefully groomed, waxed, spit-shined and, in some cases, patiently grown whiskers that swirl around in curliques, are shaved into magnificent muttonchops or braided into beautiful plaits. Some of the region’s best-bearded and mustachioed men — and a few imaginative women —…
There’s an unforgettable scene in Like Water for Chocolate. A woman bakes a cake for the wedding of the man she loves but is not marrying. She weeps into the batter. When the wedding guests eat her cake, they vomit wildly: Her grief poisoned her cooking. Janelle VanderKelen draws on this…
