It isn’t every day that you see stormtroopers and superheroes sauntering around Boettcher Concert Hall. But that’s what happened last weekend, when the Colorado Symphony Orchestra hosted a cosplay-friendly “Symphonic Tribute to Comic Con,” featuring theme music from Star Wars, Dr. Who and other pop-culture, cult-fare favorites. All photos by…
Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room is an impeccably crafted cinematic torture machine — in the best possible way. The premise will make some cringe, while making others giddy: A punk band, trapped in a club in the middle of nowhere, have to fight off a bunch of murderous skinheads to get…
Like The Imitation Game, The Man Who Knew Infinity is a Great Man biopic about a man most viewers have probably never heard of. Srinivasa Ramanujan was a brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician who in his brief time on this earth made seismic contributions to his field. That he’s largely unknown…
In an appreciation published in The Guardian a few days after the death of J.G. Ballard, in April 2009, Martin Amis noted that the paragon of New Wave science fiction was “remorselessly visual.” Ben Wheatley’s muddled adaptation of the dystopian 1975 novel High-Rise — one of many Ballard books that…
The food and culture of Mexico took over Civic Center Park during Denver’s annual Cinco de Mayo festival last weekend. Photographer Aaron Thackeray was there on May 8 to caught all the colors, cars, good times…and good weather. Now see the full Cinco de Mayo slide show. …
David Mamet, the caustic playwright who’s an unapologetic right-winger these days, has always liked to offend, and he does so with brilliant scripts filled with intelligent, jazzy and sometimes incisive dialogue. His November, now showing at the Avenue Theater, premiered in 2008, as George W. Bush’s second term was coming…
Washington Park went to the dogs on Saturday, May 7, for the 23rd annual Furry Scurry, a two-mile walk and fun run for pups and their people that benefits the Denver Dumb Friends League. All photos by Brandon Marshall. Were you there? Find your pup in the full 2016 Furry…
Generally speaking, Facebook’s “memories” feature that it thrusts at the top of your feed every morning harkens back to meaningless, long-forgotten posts, often of things that you’d prefer not to remember. But this morning, as I turned on the computer and sat down bleary-eyed to attempt to write (after falling…
Throughout May, Wheel of Fortune is celebrating a few great American cities — and this week, it’s Denver’s turn to take a spin in the spotlight. After months of planning, fifteen local contestants flew out to Los Angeles in March to tape the Denver-themed shows, which start tonight. We don’t…
“Death takes a holiday” is one of those wise, cynical, darkly funny old-European concepts that should yield rich fictional results, both comic and philosophical. The idea, which got its start in a 1924 play by Italian Alberto Casella, is that Death decides to take a break from collecting souls to…
Vaxxed, the new “documentary” about the alleged connection between vaccines and autism, is directed by Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced doctor responsible for duping untold thousands of parents into believing vaccinations could give their children autism. This may not be news to anyone who’s followed the controversy surrounding the film’s abrupt…
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. Nicole Gonzales and Michel “Mich” Velazquez met at a concert a couple…
Murals have been blooming like Denver’s cherry blossom trees this spring. No sooner had we settled on our award-winning mural in the Best of Denver 2016 than amazing street art started popping up around town. Here are the ten best new street-art murals of 2016 (so far)… 10. Dread Horseshoe Lounge 414…
The weekends have been kind of wet around here lately, so let’s live it up during the week. This week brings embarrassment, art discussions and an intimate evening with a local comic. Check out the Westword calendar for even more to do, and don’t forget about free day at the…
Denver is proud of its public art program, and new pieces are being added all the time, including along RTD’s A-Line from Union Station to Denver International Airport. But the program definitely has its critics, including Georgia Amar, co-founder of Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe, who shared this assessment with…
The Grammy award-winning Okee Dokee Brothers, a family folk duo with Colorado roots, release their debut picture book through Sterling Publishing on May 17. Can You Canoe? is named for the acoustic adventure album that launched the Okee Dokee Brothers’ career in 2012; the book takes readers on a cross-country…
According to her emails, Hillary Clinton has had an eye on Alicia Florrick since season one. As her pop-culture portraits go, The Good Wife has been a flattering one. Its protagonist first followed in the footsteps of many a political spouse by standing by her man, then relaunched her career,…
If you thought the billionaire played by Steve Carell in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher was eerie, please allow me to introduce you to the real John du Pont. A dangerous concoction of lonely and paranoid, du Pont was blessed with money and mobility and cursed with the kind of childhood that…
On the surface, there has been a lot of forward movement on television for black women. We’re now able to see an incredible breadth of black female characters, including Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson) on Empire, Rosalee (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) on Underground and Dr. Rainbow Johnson (Tracee Ellis Ross) on Black-ish…
It’s been two weeks (or a little over eleven hours and fourteen days as “Nothing Compares 2 U” lovingly time stamps) since we lost our sweet Prince, and many of us have worn out our DVDs and VHS copies of Purple Rain. That film, though based on Prince’s life, was written…
Guests danced the night away in a galaxy far, far away — right here in Denver — for Point Gallery’s May the Fourth Art War! salute to all things Star Wars. The evening included photo ops galore for costumed galactic characters and creatures, along with Star Wars art on the…
Every good thing has a dark side. That’s especially true of Star Wars lore, which served as a special May the Fourth theme for Milk Bar’s weekly Alt Goth Night, with DJ Slave1 and guest spinners DJs Tower and Bloodline adding some galactic tunes to the mix. All photos by…
