This week’s big movie can be found on TV. Arch-independent filmmaker Todd Haynes makes a characteristically sidelong move toward the mainstream with his five-part miniseries Mildred Pierce, which starts this Sunday on HBO. Haynes, the most academic yet mass-culture-minded of U.S. indie directors, began his career in the late Reagan…
The greatest strength of Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul lies in the hour-long opening monologue, in which an eccentric British housewife, holding an outdated guidebook to Kabul, tries to get her arms around the great, rich, anguished and turbulent mystery that is Afghanistan. Surrounded by people of diverse cultures and religions, sequentially…
Pakistan’s K2 mountain is the second highest in the world, and it kills climbers: One dies for every four who make the summit. Very few of us can understand what drives those who attempt these summits, deliberately exposing themselves to terror and pain, nor can we know what it feels…
Marc Black loves you, Rachel Maddow.Oh, wow. This dude loves Rachel Maddow. In this twisted diddy of adoration brought to you by Marc Black, the singer-songwriter revels in his adulation of the fair reporting, crooked smile and short haircut of his favorite MSNBC news anchor. Though he starts out by…
Some years ago, Denver artist (and Westword MasterMind, class of 2007) Katie Taft instigated and curated the Self Made salon series at Mario’s Double Daughters Salotto, wherein artists gave informal talks and networking and discussion ensued over food and drink. Financial realities and life then got in the way, and…
Officially today, March 21st, is the first day of Spring. It certainly feels like Spring outside, although this is far from the first day it’s been like this. Ah, the magic of Colorado. Regardless, if you’re looking to breathe deeply while standing in a field or throw a frisbee to…
For all you ladies out there who have been eagerly awaiting a time when wearing resin-composite shower-shoes in public would not require you to look like a club-footed asshole, then your ship may have just sort of rolled in, at least as far as the club-footedness is concerned. “Just in…
The 2011 March Powwow and all the festivities therein taught me something I suspect is tremendously important. If you are wearing feathers, mirrors, bells, and dancing like you are a force of nature — if you are even in close proximity to people doing these things — it is near…
David Sirota may have an ironic side — his new book Back to Our Future, an examination of how ’80s pop culture influenced the politics of today, has plenty of smirking affection for the cultural detritus of the past — but he’s still at heart a pundit, and as such,…
In the grand tradition of pugilists like Rocky Balboa and, to a lesser extent, Rudy Ruettiger, I have a demanding workout routine: Every morning, I get up, eat four steaks, drink a dozen raw eggs directly from the blender, oil myself up and stare at my imposing delts in the…
Somewhere between the literary obsessiveness and the heroin-haze that, together, consumed his life, William S. Burroughs developed a technique called cut-up writing, which uses fragments of preexisting works and rearranges them to create something new. The results, generally, are dizzying and nonsensical, but wonderfully so: because they are unintelligible, they…
Freeskiers Sean Pettit and Grete Eliassen won the 2011 Red Bull Cold Rush at Silverton Mountain on Friday, showcasing the best of one of Colorado’s most extreme ski destinations (check out the video highlights after the jump). Silverton opened up 22,000 acres of new heli-serviced terrain this season, which helped…
It’s now officially spring, and with it today comes Earth Day, the day when we thank nature for not being so goddamned cold for the next few months by planting a tree and then getting into our cars, guzzling cash-crop coffee out of Styrofoam containers, throwing them out the window…
The moon was closer last night to earth than it has been for eighteen years, reflecting the light of the sun onto earth and lighting up the night sky. Photos shot and submitted to Westword by Dustin Schaefer of the Loveland Ski Area…
Mighty Fudge, the naughty Boulder animation studio that’s lately been taking on the likes of Jay Leno and YouTube, is now pimping its newest animated atrocity. Titled “Under the Bed” and starring big-league vocal talent Maggie Roswell (the voice of now-deceased Maude Flanders and other characters on the Simpsons) and…
The Burlycute burlesque troupe put their own spin on St. Patrick’s Day at Bender’s Tavern, 314 East 13th Avenue, with St. Pastie’s Day, complete with a Guinness act (including a giant pint glass of the brew), the Lucky Charms leprechaun and other pop culture symbols of Irish culture literally stripped…
It’s already well established that I am a winner. Recall, if you will, my awe-inspiring victory in September, when I definitively established my dominance as the strongest, fastest and most virile man in a skirt at the Running of The Gays. Now imagine what I could do with my fire-breathing…
Some people in incorporated Boulder County are dealing with their pesky prairie dog problems by blowing the fuckers up with something called The Rodenator. Other people wish they wouldn’t, since it turns their block into a mini suburban Baghdad, complete with flaming, screaming animals running down the street. In honor…
Admit it, you have become one of those crazy dog people. Every time you go on vacation, the sight of your little buddy’s puppy-dog eyes gets you in the gut, ruining your Colorado getaway before you even leave. Why not exchange good old-fashioned guilt for a healthy dose of shame…
When it comes to UFOs, we tend to be a little more skeptical, perhaps, than many. At least Kiernan Maletsky was clearly more than a tad skeptical of what he called the “grainy specks in motion” in the videos of magnetflipper, a Denver-based Fox Mulder who’s been posting UFO videos…
There are some actors so closely and irrevocably associated with certain roles that you can never watch them in any other movie without thinking about that role. For Matthew McConaughey, no matter how many times he plays an incorrigible scamp in a lukewarm romantic comedy or — in this case…
Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is? Echo Mountain is celebrating its 5th birthday party this year with $5 Friday night lift tickets for the next five weeks, tonight through April 18. And wait, there’s more! Echo’s annual Liptricks Not Lipstick terrain park contest…
