Years ago, I walked into the McSweeney’s store in Brooklyn and fell instantly in love with the irreverent way the independent publisher’s quarterly journal and books were juxtaposed with nonsensical ephemera. It was a crazy, wonderful thing to stumble upon in the heart of that borough. Dave Eggers founded Might…
The Boulder International Film Festival is in full swing, and if you haven’t caught any of the innovative, controversial and just plain good movies being offered, now’s your chance to head up to Boulder for a full day of film-loving. The Opening Night Gala and Film, which took place on…
Fleet-footed corpses are, from a physiological point of view, complete bullshit. “If you run that fast, your ankles will snap off,” says Jason Creed (Josh Close) to fellow film student Ridley (Philip Riccio), the gauze-wrapped lead of his no-budget Mummy opus The Death of Death. Pausing to regroup, cast and…
I’ve always wanted a team of sled dogs. Just picture it: On those snowy mornings when the highways are jam-packed with skidding motorists attempting to navigate their way to work in a blizzard, my dogs and I would sail swiftly and majestically past the congestion, with me shouting “Mush!” over…
“Maybe I could be the first rapper-slash-doctor!” As he applies to medical schools for next year, Nathaniel Motte — beatmaker and one half of Boulder crunk-rock duo 3OH!3 — is getting psyched about the cred this will win him in the hip-hop game. “Let’s put this down in ink,” he…
With both Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson starting in this weekend’s All-Star game in New Orleans, it’s easy to forget how far the Nuggets franchise has come in five short years. The season before Melo’s arrival, Denver owned the worst record in the league, netting just seventeen wins and writing…
Clubbers, beware! Something wicked this way comes — an alien hybrid built out of the DNA of hip-hop, electro, jungle and glitch, fused together via DSP wizardry and masterful laptop skills. With bowel-rupturing sub-bass, teeth-rattling beats and mind-bending cuts, edits and processing, it’s the aural equivalent of an industrial-strength cleanser:…
Every day Westword receptionist Steve Burge gives you the fashionable view from the front desk. This is why I’m glad I don’t work in a “normal” office environment. This guy’s look is dull, dull, dull in his uber-beige office attire. Now, I do give him props for his four button…
I grew up in New Mexico and attended UNM as an undergrad, so I’ve had a long-standing awareness of the artist Luis Jimenez. In college, I would pass by Jimenez’s “Fiesta Dancers” sculpture daily and the piece always looked like a man and a drag queen dancing to me. I…
Every day Westword receptionist Steve Burge gives you the fashionable view from the front desk. Here’s an early Valentine to the ladies (and one out of every ten gentlemen) out there. When Taylor, our Classified Cupid, aims his arrow (and those baby blues) at you, you’re a goner… but what…
Every day Westword receptionist Steve Burge gives you the fashionable view from the front desk. This Retail Romeo shows off the two accessories no man should be without: a classic, striped necktie and a cocky, little smirk. Lorenz keeps it simple in a baby blue silk shirt and matching tie…
Every day Westword receptionist Steve Burge gives you the fashionable view from the front desk. Notice the lonely chair, the forsaken computer, the inactive telephone. These are all accessories to the latest trend seen sweeping the Westword halls… a look we’re calling “Cubicle Contagion.” Everyone is showing it off. No…
At the crosswalk the other day, I noticed something peeking out from the usual pasting of fliers on the light pole in front of me. It looked like an address label. In a nondescript font was printed: “OUT OF IRAQ” — a plea unlikely to persuade any policymakers who happened…
No celebrity hairdresser should ever be allowed near Colin Farrell’s eyebrows with a tweezer. Black, fluffy and gloriously unilateral, they still aren’t the prettiest things about In Bruges; that honor falls to the Belgian city itself, known for its scenic medieval turrets, bourgeois tedium and unfavorable comparisons with Amsterdam. Bruges…
When a friend recently told me that she’d been confused by the poster for the Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson fortune-hunting romp Fool’s Gold adorning her local multiplex — that she’d thought for sure this movie had already come and gone — I understood her bewilderment. Even as a professional film critic…
Long have we waited to be taken down to the Paradise City, where the girls are green and the grass is pretty, or whatever. Now, thanks to Burnout Paradise, we know what all the fuss is about. Burnout, the crash-happy racing series from EA, puts the pedal down once again…
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford(Warner Bros.)Beautifully shot, masterfully acted, and 19 hours too long, Assassination is an uneven mix of the artful and the arty that never had a shot at bringing in the audience that Brad Pitt’s chiseled melon should’ve delivered. Pitt is great,…
Across the Universe (Sony) The Apartment: Collector’s Edition (MGM) The Aristocats: Special Edition (Disney) Blonde and Blonder (First Look) Boy Meets Girl (Unearthed) Drive-In Cult Classics: 8 Movie Collection (Navarre) Feast of Love (MGM) Fierce People (Lionsgate) The Jane Austen Book Club (Sony) Midnight Express 30th Anniversary Edition (Sony)Psychotronica: Volumes…
Kent Haruf’s novel Plainsong won critical acclaim for its quiet beauty, and Eric Schmiedl’s stage adaptation — miraculously — comes close to doing the original justice. This isn’t one of those theater pieces that wows you on the spot; instead, Plainsong stays with you, settling slowly into your consciousness until…
Without memory, we lose our identity. We can’t know who we are unless we’re aware of what we usually think about and read, who our friends are, what we like to eat, the flowers we prefer. And the workings of memory are mysterious. In his new book, Musicophilia, the ever-inspiring…
A couple of years ago, while I was serving on a panel, one of my fellow panelists — I won’t say who — commented that it was no longer relevant where something was made because art had become truly international. I had two words for this would-be theorist: Chinese art…
In 1990, Denver Art Museum director Lewis Sharp hired his old friend Craig Miller to start the Architecture, Design and Graphics department. A gifted and visionary curator, Miller took the ball and ran with it, collecting pieces with abandon. He became especially deft at absorbing entire collections of graphics, and…
