Garden State of Intoxication

Even if you’re not a gardener, you can appreciate the genius of the Drunken Botanist (aka Amy Stewart), whose book The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks landed on the New York Times bestseller list. “She’s incredibly engaging and quite entertaining,” says Sarah Olson, adult programs…

Heads Up

The Great American Beer Festival, which takes place annually in Denver, is the biggest and best sudstravaganza in the world. This year, the sold-out fiesta runs October 10-12 and features 626 breweries pouring an astounding 3,159 beers. But GABF is just the start. Beginning this weekend and continuing through next…

Return of the Native

Now in its tenth year, Denver’s Indigenous Film & Arts Festival continues to present a native- and third-world view through enlightening film screenings and other events. The multi-location, multicultural fest, this year themed “Connections,” begins to unreel tonight at 7 p.m. with a free screening of global shorts, a Q&A…

Family Politics

The ghost of Julius Rosenberg floats high above and around Amy Herzog’s drama After the Revolution, the story of a devoutly Marxist East Coast family clinging to the memory of patriarch Joe Joseph, a blacklisted American Red whose refusal to name names in a McCarthy-esque era continues to inspire the…

Relive the Classics

Just because nearly every classic film of note is available on disc or via streaming doesn’t mean that’s the best way to see it. There’s something electrifying about sitting in a darkened room with a few dozen appreciative fans while the action unfolds on a seventy-foot-wide screen. Denver film aficionados…

Podcast: Why Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is a near-perfect movie

On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek both praise Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock), saying the director exhibits a “lovely human touch” with film, which is set in space, and that it’s “so different than anything else he’s…

Now Showing: Nancy Smith and Patrick Mueller

For this year’s Now Showing, Westword’s fall arts guide (you’ll find it tucked into our September 26 issue), we asked artistic movers and shakers to answer a few questions about the state of the arts, both locally and around the world. We’ll be rolling out their answers over the next…

Blood, sweat and fashion: Colorado Fashion Week 2013 starts today

Justice Kwesi Kwarteng is smartly dressed and educated. Perhaps most important, the founder and creative director of Colorado Fashion Week, which starts today, has a quiet disposition. And that’s good, because with multiple events happening this week, the entity he created can become quite chaotic. See also:Colorado Fashion Week behind…

Oh, thank heaven? Hardly: 7-Eleven, you make Denver look tacky

My earliest childhood memories of 7-Eleven are all positive. Growing up in the pseudo-suburban area of southeast Denver known as Virginia Village, I spent many summer days scrounging for enough change to buy a Slurpee and three or four pieces of Bazooka bubble gum at the nearby 7-Eleven. Because way…

The top ten geek events in Denver in October

Is there a more geek-friendly month than October? With Halloween anchoring things at the end, we get a full slate of horror goodies all month, and even the mundanes get in the spirit. Horror not your thing? It’s still an excuse to dress up as your favorite robot, hobbit or…

Now Showing: Adam Lerner and Adam Gildar

For this year’s Now Showing, Westword’s fall arts guide (you’ll find it tucked into our September 26 issue), we asked artistic movers and shakers to answer a few questions about the state of the arts, both locally and around the world. We’ll be rolling out their answers over the next…

100 Colorado Creatives: Kurt Bauer

#43: Kurt Bauer If you’re an ambient/experimental/folk/worldbeat/noise/improvisatory/uncategorizable musician in Denver, you know it’s not easy to get noticed. But Kurt Bauer is on your side: Bauer — who’s spent years in Denver’s underground music scene — galvanizes a small but serious community of like-minded creatives by providing them with a…