Black Cube artist fellow Derrick Velasquez is standing in the middle of his workspace at TANK Studios, a piece of foam trim in one hand, a picture of Patrick Swayze in the other, and talking about why a giant medallion-shaped dart board measuring 96 by 78 inches is hanging above…
Spring is all about new beginnings, and this weekend is full of them. Hop on board the celebrations for the new train to the airport, try a brand-new beer and watch an all-new episode of a sexually charged nerd show. If you need more options, smash that Westword calendar button…
“An ornate and decorated building on the outside says the people who walk by matter, that the public space matters, right?” That’s what history professor Bryant Simon said during “Going for Broke: Atlantic City Falls On Hard Times,” a conversation broadcast on Fresh Air a few months ago. Though the piece revolved…
#83: Roseanna Frechette Roseanna Frechette dons more hats than she has fingers to count them on: Writer, poet, publisher, dancer, creative youth programs director and yoga instructor are just a few of the titles she wears with aplomb. Then there are her efforts on behalf of bohemian Denver — as…
The return of everyone’s favorite gritty, blood-soaked fantasy series is imminent, and boy, am I eager to see where things are going on Game of Thrones. This season is particularly intriguing for pre-TV fans of the series, because it’s the first season that covers chronology past what’s found in the…
It is a testament to the adaptability of the individual that my brain didn’t explode last week when circumstances put my aesthetic judgment in a kind of netherworld. That’s because at the same time that I was putting together my guide to the worst of the new architecture in Denver,…
Don’t hold it against Tom Tykwer’s A Hologram for the King that its best scene is also its first. As Alan Clay (Tom Hanks) strides down a suburban street singing a modified version of Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” (“You may find yourself … without a beautiful house ……
Elvis Presley once watched Dr. Strangelove three times in one night at a Memphis movie theater. After that, he made them play the last reel several more times, marveling at it. It’s fascinating to wonder about: Here’s this country’s biggest musical star, the leading man in movies he knew were…
Since the giant shipping container first came onto the Denver art scene, Black Cube has never been like other museums, especially when it comes to building lasting relationships with its artist fellows. On Saturday, April 23, as part of Doors Open Denver, Black Cube will launch the first of two…
Hot on the heels of the Red Rocks summer concert schedule comes the announcement that signals the official end of winter with promises of warm summer nights under the stars. The Denver Film Society and Denver Arts & Venues have unveiled the 2016 Film on the Rocks schedule at the…
In its sixth year, the Denver County Fair is still full of surprises — and this week’s 2016 poster reveal offers another one. The latest masterpiece from fair poster artist and Denver painter Mark Penner Howell is all about politics, with an emphasis on the fair’s newest addition: the Political…
Westword’s Best of Denver celebrates everything to love in the Mile High City, from old venues to new, hair to food, and art both private and public. There’s so much going on in Denver’s art scene, we had trouble narrowing down the new public art contenders — created between the 2015…
Tease Studio’s pole-dancing faculty and students — including one dude — busted their sexiest moves last Friday for Make It Rain at the Oriental Theater, proving that their workout of choice is more than good exercise. All photos by Brandon Marshall. That was a taste. Now see the rest of…
In Jeff Nichols’ gripping domestic thriller Take Shelter, Michael Shannon played a family man convinced that Armageddon was upon us. But even as the character’s visions compelled him to take more and more extreme precautions, the film remained fixed in the world of the real. It was a portrait of…
Jonathan Pine, the hero of The Night Manager, might have a syrupy voice and skin tanned to a glowing bronze, but in other respects he’s a classic John le Carré creation. Pine (Tom Hiddleston) makes his living unshowily and in the dark, at a swank hotel, juggling front-desk phone calls,…
The musician biopic might be stale and stupid as a genre, but it will endure. Each new one offers the possibility of the wondrous thing that made Hollywood into Hollywood: presence. You can guess from the trailers that I Saw the Light might be a botch job as drama, but…
Careful what you wish for. When it was announced that Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt would be joining Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth for the followup to 2012’s humdrum action/fairy tale Snow White and the Huntsman, many filmgoers, myself included, got unduly excited. The original film, while a hit, had…
Denver is changing rapidly. Some of the changes have been good: the burgeoning art scene, the museum-building boom, the explosion in restaurants and the whole Napa-of-craft-beer thing, not to mention legalized marijuana. But there have also been some bad changes: the terrible traffic, the litter and pet waste everywhere, the…
“What keeps a man alive?/ He lives on others./He likes to taste them first then eat them whole if he can/Forgets that they’re supposed to be his brothers/That he himself was ever called a man.” — The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill “The history of the world, my sweet/Is…
The City of Aurora really came into its own in the 1970s and 80s, when it was one of America’s fastest-growing cities. But because of that fast growth, Aurorans have had to deal with a number of issues over the years, as the growing pains of a community meet the…
#84: Curtis Tucker Trained in graphic design, Curtis Tucker is one of those staunch DIY guys. He’s worked as a middleman in the underground zine industry as a traveling vendor; through his online venture Far Out Zines, he’s distributed micro-press and handmade publications, including his own. As a ground-floor gallery…
Husband-and-wife duo Jonathan Fessler and Delanie Holton-Fessler are in the business of rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty, and now they have more than enough elbow room to do their work. The founders of The Craftsman and Apprentice, named Best Place to Learn Your Craft in the Best of…
