Happy New Year! This was a great year to be a geek, but there's every reason to think 2016 will be just as good, if not better. To get your year started off right, we've rounded up ten of  Denver's best opportunities to get your geek on and listed them, in chronological order, to make it as easy as possible to be the best nerd you can be. From a look at the roots of Star Wars to a zombie apocalypse dance party, here are ten of the month's best geek events. 

10. Sherlock: The Abominable Bride
What's better than your first ever opportunity to see a brand-new standalone Sherlock special at the same time as the U.K.? How about a chance to see it as a special presentation from Fathom Events on the big screen, plus bonus behind-the-scenes content, with a few hundred fellow fans? The ninety-minute special demodernizes the show’s take on the characters, returning them to their Victorian roots for a one-off adventure that’s both a fun change of pace for longtime fans, and a great introduction to the noobs. There's no reason not to start the year with a heaping helping of Benedict Cumberbatch in a role he was practically made for. 

See it at 7:30 p.m. January 5-6 at the local theaters. Tickets are $15. Get tickets and more info at Fathom's Sherlock event page.

9. The Room with Tommy Wiseau in person
Fulfill your geeky obsession with inexplicably entertaining bad movies with a rare chance to see one of the very best/worst of them — the infamous stinker The Room — with director/writer/star Tommy Wiseau in person. Wiseau is possibly even weirder and more entertaining than his movie, and his off-the-wall Q&A sessions are sure to yield bizarre non sequiturs, indecipherable rambling and possibly even a kernel of insight into how The Room came to exist. Plus, they're throwing in a screening of his rancid sitcom The Neighbors for those Wiseau completists out there!

See it at midnight Friday January 8 and Saturday, January 9 at the Esquire Theatre. For tickets, $15, and more information, visit the Landmark Esquire website.


8. The Hateful Great: Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino's alt-history masterpiece is one of his geekiest films to date — only Kill Bill rivals it for sheer geek appeal — making it the perfect film to launch the Alamo's The Hateful Great series, a look back at nearly every film he's ever made. A favorite "what if" scenario of alt-historians everywhere comes to vivid, bloody life in Tarantino's capable hands, as he posits a group of Jewish commandos sent to terrorize the Nazis and, incidentally, kill Hitler. Violent, profane and a hell of a lot of fun, Inglourious Basterds is an epic take on a World War II that could have been.

See Inglourious Basterds at 9:30 p.m.January 11 at the Alamo Drafthouse. For tickets, $5, and more info, visit the Inglourious Basterds event page.

7. Star Wars: Origins of the Force
Ever wonder what kind of films influenced a young George Lucas as he conceived and created Star Wars? The Denver Film Society and filmmaker Alexandre Philippe (The People vs. George Lucas, a film in which I appeared for no compensation) delve into the serials, samurai movies and even the early work of Lucas himself to explore how the films we all know and love came to be. The series kicks off with a compilation of clips from a diverse array of movies Lucas drew upon, as well as two episodes each of the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials. Later films in the series include Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, THX-1138, and Metropolis. 

The series starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday, January 13, at the Sie FilmCenter. Tickets are $12 for DFS Members, $8 for students, $15 for non members, or buy a pass and see all four films for $40 for DFS members and $50 for non members. For tickets and more info, visit the Star Wars: Origins of the Force page.

6. Pixar in Concert
A whole generation of geeks grew up on Pixar films, and even more of us have nurtured our own little geeks on their work. From classics like Toy Story through recent favorites like Wall-E and UP, Pixar films have consistently delivered memorable characters, great stories and nerd-friendly cinema fare — not to mention some pretty fantastic music. Now you can hear a selection of the best of that music, accompanied by a montage of clips from the films themselves, as the Colorado Symphony Orchestra presents Pixar in Concert, two hours of the studios greatest musical hits, all performed by our excellent orchestra.

Hear the music of Pixar at 7:30 p.m. Friday, January 15, and 2:30 p.m. Saturday, January 16, at Boettcher Concert Hall. Tickets start at $34. For tickets and more information, visit the Colorado Symphony website.