Kevin Costner eases white America into the now with McFarland, USA, we hear about the Berlin Film Festival’s highs (Queen of Earth) and lows (Knight of Cups), and dip into the lukewarm waters of a second Hot Tub Time Machine movie. Also, there’s much praise for teen comedy The DUFF and…
Deemed the “gay Super Bowl” by its many fans, the Academy Awards telecast has long been a bastion of over-the-top queer energy rolled up in the drama of the secret, gay inner-workings of the Hollywood system. Many a gay icon has had their moment in the sun during the Oscar…
5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche “At the center, it’s a really sweet love story — and the funniest show of the year. I actually think that’s true. People who think women can’t be funny? Well, they should come and take a look at this.” That’s director Edith Weiss’s description of…
Artopia curator Jolt of Guerilla Garden is bringing a whole posse of local street artists to City Hall for Artopia 2015 on Saturday, February 21, where they’ll transform the venue with a show of art in action. But at least one of those artists — photographer, arts booster and Denver…
When Westword’s first 100 Colorado Creatives series came to an end last February, it was a little like losing a very artsy best friend. And there were still so many unsung creative types doing great things around this state that we decided to start on a second round of Q&As…
We’ve been a bit spoiled with the weather in Denver the last couple of weekends, but winter may rear it’s cold, ugly head again this time around. Still, it shouldn’t stop you from having a good time. If you’re not going to Artopia — Westword’s annual festival of fashion, arts and culture…
As an arts journalist in the town I call home, I hear a lot from local artists — some of them sharing their thoughts through their art, some of them on social media, some at events around town. And my questions in the ongoing 100 Colorado Creatives blog series always…
Back in 2013, we reported on a game called Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore a Fedora that had just gotten funded on Kickstarter. The creation of Denver-based game studio Glass Bottom Games, Hot Tin Roof promised a roaring noir adventure game with guns blazing and talking kitties. After a long…
“I always had a good time at Artopia,” says Silas Ulibarri, aka Jolt, the founder of Guerilla Garden. He’s talking about Westword’s annual celebration of the arts, which has evolved a lot over the past two decades but remains one of the best annual parties in town, showcasing the best of…
Shove off, John Hughes. The DUFF, a high-school comedy by Ari Sandel, opens by declaring that The Breakfast Club’s social categories are, like, way passé. Explains lead Bianca (Mae Whitman), “Jocks play video games, princesses are on antidepressants, and geeks rule the world.” Today, be ye goth kid, science dweeb…
Five years ago, four losers passed out in a jacuzzi, boiled back to 1986, healed their past wounds, rocked out to Poison, and returned to their timeline as gods. Thusly, Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink was hailed as a minor deity: He’d taken a dumber-than-huffing-hairspray premise and made…
Last week three Denver artists were each surprised to be gifted with a yellow packet of fresh twenty-dollar bills — $500 in all — that were delivered with a handful of candy and a big message. Their tardy Santa Claus is the anonymous Yes Ma’am Projects, which each year awards…
Artopia, Westword’s celebration of the arts, will return to City Hall on Saturday, February 21. In addition to cutting-edge art and live music (and yes, food and drinks), the evening’s events will include Whiteout, our annual fashion show that’s returned to the mix. Watch the video above to see what…
#37: Molly Bounds Young Denver artist Molly Bounds, aka Moldy Bong, straddles the worlds of DIY homemade comix and fine art, making deadpan and unironic drawings that work just as well splashed in colors across a wall in a mural as they do carefully inked in black and white for…
RiNo’s Helikon Gallery and Studios is currently hosting Spark & Ruin: Anatomy of a Flame, a handsome group exhibit that examines fire, which is a pretty relevant local topic. Though gallery director Cayce Goldberg’s family has owned this particular rail-side property for decades, Spark & Ruin was guest-curated by Raymundo…
Late yesterday, science-fiction fans got a great bit of news: District 9 director Neill Blomkamp will be directing a new Alien film. This is good on many levels, since the Alien franchise needs some serious love (sorry, Prometheus made things worse, not better) and given the genius of District 9, Blomkamp…
Back in 2009, Denver School of the Arts student Quinn Marchman and a group of friends decided to take the lead and create an original production for the school’s annual Black History Month production. Together they wrote, directed, produced and acted in a play about a fictional character named Barry,…
Realism and its derivations are still hot properties in the fine arts, especially in contemporary painting, and this is a good time to immerse yourself in works of this type. Robischon Gallery is highlighting four artists, in separate shows, who are all doing work that riffs on realism. And that’s…
Bike enthusiasts gathered Sunday at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds to take a spin through aisles of fancy wheels and cycling accessories at the Colorado Custom and Vintage Bicycle Expo and Swap Meet, looking for new rides and old gold. Brandon Marshall was there; keep reading for his photos of the…
With Louis Silver’s music for The Jazz Singer in 1927, talkies ushered in a new age of recorded sound; what audiences heard when they watched a film took a bold step into completing the grand illusion of cinema. Yet even without recorded sound, the silent film era flourished with hand-crafted scores,…
The musical Next to Normal garnered a Pulitzer Prize for composer Tom Kitt and writer Brian Yorkey and high praise from critics — in part because it dealt with the ugly realities of mental illness, an unusual and courageous focus for a generally upbeat and unrealistic medium. At the center…
For the next ten weeks Denver will experience the ways in which history, violence and three-dimensionalism intersect through the work of Cristóbal Gracia, who was selected to represent Mexico City as a 2015 Biennial Ambassador, alongside fellow Mexican artist Daniel Monroy Cuevas. The 2015 Biennial Ambassadors program is a ten-week…
