California’s first openly gay elected politician, Harvey Milk, was a feisty camera-shop owner turned political activist. He fought homophobia, commanded LGBTQ people to “come out,” and struggled to build coalitions between oppressed communities. When fellow San Francisco city supervisor Dan White gunned him down in 1978, Milk became a martyr…
This weekend is full of free events — whether you want to enjoy art while outside or inside. You can see downtown get turned into an arcade, check out historic hubcaps or have an artsy picnic, all without turning your wallet inside out. Keep reading for ten events that don’t…
Filmmaker Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West hit theaters recently and on this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, the Village Voice Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek, with L.A. Weekly’s Amy Nicholson, talk about his generally offensive body of work. Also on this week’s pod: reviews…
Known in the Denver music scene as a former guitarist of The Czars and record producer for Joe Sampson and Esme Patterson, Metro State University of Denver professor Roger Green will be teaching “Psychedelic Aesthetics, Literature, and the Crisis in Liberalism,” a donation-based, seven-week course at Deer Pile beginning Sunday,…
There’s a reason why tourists crowd Denver’s city streets each summer: It’s a happening town and sports valhalla, with pro teams, adventurous and ethnic eateries, a downtown mall, urban neighborhoods, a gallery scene, great museums, miles of greenway trails and all the promise of that blue mountainscape on the horizon…
Always willing to push fashion to the next level, Patrick and Mike Liberty created their 2014 summer collection look book using the Native Roots legal grow operation and the 4/20 rally as a backdrop. See also: Westword Whiteout: Patrick and Mike Liberty, founders of Akomplice Clothing…
Michael Paglia visits Space Gallery in this week’s review, taking in its new architect-designed building on Santa Fe Drive. The opening show fittingly entitled Space Gallery Grand Opening showcases work from every artist associated with Space, including painters and printmakers. Continue reading for photos from Space. See also: Tobias Fike’s…
There are better films than Army of Darkness. Hell, there are better Evil Dead films than Army of Darkness (ahem, Evil Dead II is clearly the best in the franchise). There are more important films than Army of Darkness (just ask any film school professor). There are probably even more…
For supreme crafter Becky Hensley, the best thing about doing work by hand is not knowing everything about a chosen artform. “A big part of Share Denver’s philosophy is that you probably know how to do something and that thing you know how to do is probably something I want…
#76: Laleh Mehran Laleh Mehran represents the new wave of tech-savvy artists, jumping between mediums and testing new ground internationally in the widening digital-art arena. Her video work can be seen on downtown LED screens and as part of the recently departed Monkey Town’s programming, while a new interactive and…
Amy Metier. The William Havu Gallery is currently showing Amy Metier: Preconceived Notions, a marvelous solo that’s filled with modernist-derived abstractions. The show — Metier’s first in-town solo in two years — fills the gallery’s entire main level, not only with her signature paintings, but also with prints featuring experimental…
Shrek: The Musical.There are a lot of things to like about Shrek: The Musical at Boulder’s Dinner Theatre. They include the Dragon, created by Cory Gilstrap and manipulated by a handful of actors. Blessed with the rich, seductive voice of the inimitable Amanda Earls, she’s a riveting, literally huge presence…
In 1986, peaceniks were mad at Tom Cruise. That year, the Navy thanked Top Gun for boosting enlistment with another 20,000 recruits. Since then, Cruise has made more critiques of the military than advertisements for it, most of which (Lions for Lambs, Born on the Fourth of July, The Last…
The grand old dirty pope of midnight-movie voodoo and post-’60s turn-on, drop-out mythopoeia returns with a vengeance, in his autumnal phase and with — surprise! — a personal look backward at his own childhood. The Dance of Reality may be Alejandro Jodorowsky’s best film, and certainly, in a filmography top-heavy…
There’s no doubt that Ping Pong Summer is someone’s childhood. It plays like a cherished memory, rosy and warm, rebuilt in minutiae with such affection and detail it’s hard not to be moved by its sincerity. Writer-director Michael Tully weaves his coming-of-age story with all the trappings of the ’80s,…
Though Denver’s art world can trace its roots back to the late nineteenth century — the Denver Art Museum, for example, was founded in 1893 — it has only reached critical mass since the dawn of the 21st. The most obvious evidence of this was the construction of the DAM’s…
Peggy Jo Tallas was an outwardly conventional, quiet-spoken Texas woman who, after a mildly adventurous youth, lived with her mother for many years. Starting at the age of forty, she also robbed banks — perhaps because she was bored, perhaps because she was seeking a fuller and more interesting life,…
One of the biggest selling points of 21 Jump Street, the 2012 TV-remake comedy, turned out to be its seemingly unscripted lunacy, the way it put Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill in police-shorts outfits and let them riff on their characters’ mutual ineptitude. Sometimes you need a little flapdoodle, and…
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller pitched their idea for a 21 Jump Street movie, a film everyone thought was, at best, a moronic moneymaker, they had one bold proposal: “What if the twist is that we try to make it really good?” says Lord. “That’s basically a summary of…
Multi-hyphenate actor Clark Gregg understands that hard work and perseverance don’t necessarily pay off in Hollywood. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1992, the star of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has directed two feature films and scripted three, none of which are the work he’s best known for. Gregg knows…
Cancer, so costly in real life, can be thrown around pretty cheaply in fiction, which is why most cautious readers and moviegoers are wary of it as a plot element. Call it the Love Story syndrome. But the presence of mortal illness has always been a staple of romantic melodrama,…
The hardest part about making Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s Wayne’s World Quote-Along work isn’t finding good lines – it’s deciding which great lines are going to make the cut. “When I think about how the quote-alongs are put together, try to whittle it down to the best lines,” explains Keith Garcia,…
