June has arrived, and Denver’s comedy calendar is full of follies ranging from Saturday Night Live alumni and a comedian supergroup to an improv presidential debate and a comedy festival masterminded by local standups. While the entertainment continues all month long, this June is front-loaded with particularly great comedy shows. Here they…
When Timothy Orr, then the assistant director of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, was called on to take over the whole thing following the departure of CSF artistic director Philip Sneed in early 2013, he found himself immersed in what he now calls — in a profound understatement — “a very…
School’s out for summer — or close enough — and that means more opportunities to enjoy all of Denver’s geeky fun times. June is yet another month packed full of top-notch geek entertainment, from our biggest con of the year to underappreciated geek films on the big screen. Here, in…
You don’t expect to see important art shows unveiled at this time of year — but this spring has defied expectations. There are so many important exhibits in town right now, you’d think we were in the middle of the fall, long recognized as the high season for art not…
Comedian Nick Thune is often recognized as the tall, aloof guy who strums a Midsummer Night’s Dream–like tune while tossing out whimsical and deranged notions — so fans may be surprised to learn that he’s abandoned the guitar altogether. In the two years since his Netflix special Folk Hero, Thune has…
It’s the end of an era. On Thursday, June 2, filmmaker and 2008 Westword MasterMind Jason Bosch will present the final screening by ArgusFest, the labor of love (for good, important films that educate audiences, albeit often very small audiences) that he started fifteen years ago. “I’ve decided to finally let…
In Diva Watch, we profile the passionate, diverse and fascinating performers who light up Denver’s drag community, expanding on our Diva Dozen list from 2015 and our new Freshest Faces list for 2016 by asking different queens — from established to ingénue — questions that take a peek beneath the…
This may be a short week, but it will be long on free fun as many summer series get under way. This week you can listen to music, learn about comics or watch a movie — without ever opening your wallet. Here are our favorite three free events this week;…
“Did I want to shoot comedies?” asks Brandon Trost, director of photography on two of this summer’s funniest films, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. “It’s funny — not at all.” But then came MacGruber, Jorma Taccone’s 2010 SNL film.“The director wanted me because I wasn’t…
Today is Memorial Day, and while there will be public fairs and festivals all over the metro area, as well as barbecues and ballgames, one reader noted a glaring omission in our list of the ten best places for food and fun today. Says John: I think you guys forgot Fort…
Springtime in the Rockies: Independence Pass reopened Thursday afternoon — just in time for the reopening of Aspen Mountain for a few more days of skiing. That makes for a perfect, last-second Colorado road trip. See and ski! The resort — with 120 acres of terrain for skiing and riding…
Last week Denver launched Denveright, a campaign to collect input on the direction that planning and development in this city should take over the next twenty years. But residents already had plenty of ideas, as evidenced by all the comments that come in whenever we write about architecture and design…
Scott Shiller, CEO of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, spoke with us a few months ago for our Winter Arts Guide, sharing what every newcomer should know about the Denver arts scene. “Denver is a true ‘arts city’ with a national reputation for creating some of the best…
On May 21, the still-open Arapahoe Basin Ski Area celebrated sunny spring weather at Colorado’s Largest Swimwear Parade on Skis & Snowboards, which was just what it sounds like: a bunch of beautiful ski bums hitting the slopes wearing next-to-nothing for a lark. A-Basin shared its photos from the event…
Mockumentary Hitler’s Folly, at only an hour long, stretches its incredibly thin premise over a surface area the size of the European front. Its single, exhausting joke: Hitler, a misunderstood artist, actually built a Disney-style animation empire that was mistaken for a fascist regime. Bill Plympton is a singularly gifted artist…
It’s Friday night on Memorial Day weekend and you’ve chosen not to flee the city. Fortunately, Denver’s artist co-ops never go on vacation — so why not visit exhibit openings in art districts all over town? Ron Gerbrandt, Jesse Myers, Sarah Rockett, Karen Roehl Ice Cube Gallery May 26 through…
In the late 1800s, Colorado was a hub for people looking for a cure for tuberculosis; our dry air, high elevation and sunshine attracted hundreds of thousands of new residents coming from humid climates across the U.S. More than a century later, we’re still drawing newcomers looking for a healthier…
It’s Memorial Day weekend, which means one more day of fun — and the calendar’s full of everything from comedy to live music to donkeys to hug. Keep reading for our ten favorite events this weekend, and then head over to the Westword calendar for even more things to do.. Untitled Rising…
Denver moviegoers, your eyes do not deceive you. This weekend the Sie FilmCenter – our city’s home for the best in arthouse, foreign and independent film – is opening X-Men: Apocalypse, Bryan Singer’s latest big-budget entry in the comic book hero’s saga. This particular opening at this particular theater is a fascinating glimpse into…
Every year when we choose our picks for Best of Denver, we’re celebrating everything the city has to offer, from the best banh mi sandwich to the best all-day happy hour. If you’ve managed to make your way through even a portion of the Best Food and Drink awards in…
#80: Michael Henry New York native Michael Henry shuffled off from Buffalo, got an MFA at Emerson College and eventually ended up in Denver, where he and partner Andrea Dupree founded Lighthouse Writers Workshop in 1997, promising the community a beacon of literary arts where authors at all levels and…
At this point in film history, the slasher is firmly entrenched as one of the core horror genres. It’s been around seemingly forever. It’s been refined, perfected, deconstructed and reinvented multiple times. Even casual horror fans have seen enough slasher films to recognize the typical story beats and tropes that…
