The Stanley Film Festival is back for its second year, with no sign of sophomore slump. The fest, which takes place at the historic Stanley Hotel, kicks off with the Colorado premiere of Alexandre Philippe’s Doc of the Dead, a comprehensive look at the zombie phenomenon in pop culture, and…
With more than ten million players worldwide, a twenty-year history and a tournament circuit that awards hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to the top players, it’s fair to say that Magic: The Gathering is a juggernaut in the gaming industry. Despite that, it’s never garnered the same kind of…
At the tail end of 1984, a film from one of the medium’s undisputed masters, adapting one of the great science fiction novels of all time– hell, one of the great American novels of all time — was released. David Lynch, adapting Frank Herbert’s masterpiece, Dune! What could go wrong?…
The Internet has enabled a new era of fascinating filmmaking. From bizarre, artistic short films to videos of guys getting hit in the nuts, there’s always something to look at on your monitor, phone or device. The only thing that could make it better would be putting these wonders on…
In 1984, the epic space opera of Frank Herbert crashed headlong into the hallucinatory weirdness of David Lynch, and the film version of Dune was born. But adapting Herbert’s dense plotting and impossibly detailed backstory into a coherent film proved beyond Lynch’s abilities. As a result, Dune is a confusing,…
Now that HBO’s magnificent Game of Thrones is back, Sunday nights just became appointment viewing again. That’s great news unless your free HBO just expired, or your ex-roommate finally changed his HBO Go password or you’re not sure you can stand watching alone knowing that the show is probably just…
When it comes to America’s favorite monster, zombies have been on top for a while now. That’s been great for dedicated zombiephiles like me, but even the most hardcore fans of the undead know it can’t last forever. Sooner or later, some other creature will emerge to take the place…
No matter how advanced video games get, there’s still something special about smacking a metal ball around a ringing, blinking maze of machinery. Celebrate the bliss of pinball with collectors, enthusiasts and exhibitors alike at this weekend’s Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown and Gameroom Expo. “It’s kind of like a car…
From deep-space exploration to the front lines of conflict to mundane tasks like cleaning your floor, robots are taking over. Why go all John Connor and try to stop them, though, when you can just join them at Robotics at the Hangar? “It’s an expo of all things robotic, from…
From HAL to the Terminator, robots in fiction play the part of the bad guy more often than not. Here in the real world, though, robots do some good work, and very little evil. You can get a taste of some of that good work this Sunday, April 13 at…
Some cult films have such an expansive audience, they may as well be mainstream. Others attract a smaller, more dedicated cult of followers who share the movie’s joys via word of mouth and keep it alive at midnight screenings. Then there are other films that seem to have no cult…
April showers bring May flowers, but we geeks don’t have to wait a whole month to reap the benefits of this one. This month is loaded with great times for geeks of every stripe, from pinball wizards to devotees of ’80s cinema, and numerous points between. Dig in to this…
You may not realize it, but this past week was a special one for Star Trek. The last seven days marked the birthday of not one, but both, of the original series stars. WIlliam Shatner, who portrayed Captain Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, both turned 83 this week…
Ten years ago, almost to the day, the current zombie apocalypse started in earnest. On March 19, 2004, patient zero hit theaters with the release of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead. The world of the walking dead hasn’t been the same since. See also: Shaun of the Dead: Your…
If there’s one thing science-fiction writers love as much as the idea of exploring space and meeting aliens, it’s traveling back in time and screwing things up. From H.G. Wells to the recent reboot of Star Trek, time travel is one of the genre’s most well-explored tropes, but authors keep…
If there’s one thing science-fiction writers love as much as exploring space and meeting aliens, it’s traveling back in time and screwing things up. From H.G. Wells to the recent reboot of Star Trek, time travel is one of the genre’s most well-explored tropes, but authors keep finding new ways…
Let’s talk about asscrack, shall we? Over the past two days, one of the biggest stories across social media is the gallery of asscracks from a Magic: The Gathering tournament held over the weekend in Richmond, Virginia. It started as a photo gallery on Reddit. By yesterday afternoon it had…
We live in the era of Big Data, and business and political decisions are increasingly driven by that fact. But what does that mean to the typical small-business owner? “The problem is that data in and of itself isn’t enough for the vast majority of businesses, especially small- and medium-sized…
When the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema screens the ’70s rogue-cop classic Dirty Harry as part of its On the Case series of crime cinema, it will be more than just a chance to see one of Clint Eastwood’s defining roles on the big screen. The movie is a veritable history lesson…
The past ten years have made it apparent that there is no more room in hell, because everywhere you look, the dead are walking the earth. Zombies are a genuine pop-cultural phenomenon, starring in cable TV’s most popular show, sitting at the center of tentpole film franchises and appearing in…
Like any subculture, geek culture has its own terminology. A lot of it is self-explanatory, but some of it requires some foreknowledge or insight to really understand. Naturally, most geeks reading this will have that terminology on lockdown, but for the merely geek-curious, it can all be a bit confusing…
With its roots in comics, punk rock and pop culture, it’s no surprise that the lowbrow-art movement — also known as pop surrealism — was ignored by “serious” critics and galleries in its early days. “It’s art that’s not ‘fine art’; it’s more adventurous,” explains Scott Bailey, curator of the…
