In the decadent 21st century, the summer movie season now sprawls from March through December. (Star Wars: Episode VII is due to awaken the Force December 18; every prior Star Wars picture has come out Memorial Day weekend.) But I’ll stick to tradition and call Memorial Day the start of…
Summer is here, at least unofficially, bringing popular fare back to Colorado stages. This weekend you can go back in time with musical Victoriana, get started on a season of repertory theater in the high country or take a risk on the cheap seats at the return engagement of a…
In 1969, kids around the globe met the wide-eyed Big Bird and cantankerous Oscar the Grouch when they turned on their televisions and encountered Sesame Street. Generations of children have since grown up with those lovable felt puppets, and so has the man who’s played both characters since their creation:…
Ronda Rousey, the reigning UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion, was a Judo bronze medalist in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games; she’s also an actor and author with the charisma and wit to match her athletic ability. On Friday, May 29 she will be at Tattered Cover Aspen Grove to sign copies of…
Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator is one of a bare handful of nearly perfect horror movies. If there was any justice in the world, it would have been the biggest movie of 1985. Instead, it’s languished as something of a cult classic, beloved by people who know it while somehow managing to…
When the tall, beautiful dramatic actress Anne Bancroft was asked what had drawn her to Mel Brooks, the short, funny-looking creator of shows and movies filled with broad, cheesy, Borscht Belt-style humor to whom she ended up married, she replied, “Mel had a lethal weapon: He made me laugh to…
For the third year running, we asked cartoonists — and would-be cartoonists — to send us comics depicting life in Colorado. We received dozens of responses; not surprisingly, many focused on cannabis (pot put the high in the smile high city, after all) — but there were also an unsual…
There’s a handsome solo at Gildar Gallery titled Someone Called Me by My Name: New Work by William Stockman. It was put together by Simon Zalkind, who’s had a long relationship with Stockman; Zalkind also curated a show of the artist’s work for the Singer Gallery at the Mizel Center…
The San Andreas fault stretches 810 miles up the Pacific coast, roughly the length of a dozen Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsons lying end to end. When it rumbles, we’ll need all twelve of him to spring into action — although, as Brad Peyton’s San Andreas warns, that still won’t be…
#22: Helen Littlejohn As a western-states public affairs specialist for the U.S. Department of Education, Helen Littlejohn is all about people, 24/7, working vigilantly to bring educational opportunities to under-served kids. But she also boasts a creative side, both in her practice as an artist and jewelry-maker and as a…
After spending half a decade in Los Angeles, going to school and working in the fashion industry, Boulder native Vanessa Barcus brought her skills and knowledge back to her home state and started Goldyn, a purveyor of adventurous couture — first as an online shop and then as a brick-and-mortar…
For the past two years, the Crom Comedy Festival has drawn comedians from across the country to the frown-furrowed plains of Omaha. The festival’s co-organizers, Zach Reinert and Ian Douglas Terry, have recently upgraded hometowns and decided to expand their annual festival while maintaining its original Nebraska base. Enter this…
No pop-culture sub-genre was left unturned at Denver Comic Con, as evidenced by the sheer variety of costumery on parade at the Colorado Convention Center over Memorial Day weekend. From the classic comic superheroes and weapon-toting warrior babes to a host of fantasy franchise favorites and easily every kind of…
With the exception of yesterday’s torrential downpour that occurred late in the evening and temporarily turned Federal Boulevard into a river, I have yet to have seen a weather pattern over the last few weeks that was worth talking about. Yet, in this fourth week of May, as pools stay…
You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. In 2009, well-known radio talk-show host Jay Marvin went through a debilitating…
Ahhhhh, this rain. Ordinarily, I would never complain about the rain. I love the staccato on the roof, the velvety moisture in Colorado’s dry air, the rolling complaint of the heavy sky. Even when I was in Ohio, so similar to Colorado this month in spring temperament, I embraced the mud…
Book signings this week include an introduction to a harrowing story of illegal immigrants trapped during a order crossing, as well as a couple of homegrown novels — one a detective book and the other a personal, and cynical, look at Evangelicals in America. John Vaillant, The Jaguar’s Children BookBar…
In Diva Watch, we’ll profile the passionate, diverse and fascinating performers who light up Denver’s drag community. We’re expanding on our Diva Dozen list from earlier this year by asking a series of questions to get a peek underneath the make-up. Meet Vandy J. Sexton, aka Jasmine Sexton. What’s in a…
Memorial Day came and went, so now we can pretend it’s full-on summer. This week you can welcome the warmer temps at a pool party, birthday bash or hilarious video game. Don’t forget to check the Westword calendar for more events, and if we missed a bargain, tell us in…
A movie about bringing down drug lords that’s actually mostly about movies, Cédric Jimenez’s The Connection is stretched over driven-cop beats so familiar that American audiences could probably follow it without subtitles. (It’s in French; add that to the title, and you get a sense of its police-film ambitions.) It’s…
A conversation with Persian-American Safa Samiezadé-Yazd — a local artist who’s worked on a national level for Aslan Media and Boomgen Studios — first opened Eric Dallimore’s eyes to the unique position of her culture-straddling compatriots in America: Iranian-American artists struggle not only with their mixed cultural identity, but also…
It’s a holiday weekend, but the shows must go on: At BMoCA in Boulder, ten artists explore how technology affects creative expression. In Larimer Square collectors can revel in work from three lowbrow masters and at Hinterland, an MFA thesis exhibition melds new media and new ideas. Creativity never sleeps;…
