Over the past f...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/film/battleship-movie-review/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/film/the-dictator-movie-review/ In The Dictator, his third collaboration with director Larry Charles, Sacha Baron Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen, the young, dumb dictator of fictional North African nation Wadiya. Under Aladeen's rule, oil-producing, uranium-enriching Wadiya is a hostile threat to global peace...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/film/the-dictator-movie-review/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/lupe-fiasco/ Lupe Fiasco knows just how to incite the masses, whether it be through his politically charged lyrics or the convincing execution of his rhymes: When this man speaks, everyone listens up. Such is the case with his record Lasers, the culmination of a standoff between the MC and Atlantic Rec...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/lupe-fiasco/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/eric-church/ Nashville eats mavericks for breakfast, spitting them out compromised or undigested. Eric Church has never played by Nashville's rules, yet he appears poised on the brink of country mega-stardom. The clever iconoclast's edgy debut single, "Two Pink Lines" (off his 2006 debut, Sinners Like Me Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/eric-church/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/spindrift/ After a handful of years spent experimenting with a broad spectrum of psychedelic music while based in Newark, Delaware, two of this band's founding members relocated to Los Angeles. There they found like-minded musicians, and for a while, Spindrift included members of Psychic TV, Brian Jonestown...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/spindrift/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/jamey-johnson/ If the country charts were a battle royal with the only weapons being raw honesty and authenticity, Jamey Johnson would have Kenny Chesney and Brad Paisley pretty anxious. The former marine isn't joking when he claims a home "between Jennings and Jones," though he spends more time on Waylon's sid...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/jamey-johnson/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/news/denver-international-airport-conspirarcy-theories-creative-tales/ The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! But they (allegedly) won't be taking over Denver International Airport, as conspiracy theorists have been claiming for the past month after word got out that twenty Russian soldiers would visit the Fort Carson Army base near Colorado Spring...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/news/denver-international-airport-conspirarcy-theories-creative-tales/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/cmt-redneck-island-reality-tv/ Comes a time in every man's life when he must reckon with the fact that he's become old and crotchety. For me, that day actually came at about age 22 — and while I've not been averse to shaking my fist at many a nonsensical aspect of our dumb culture since, there are other proverbial kids o...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/cmt-redneck-island-reality-tv/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/various-artists/ The crew from Ugly Azz Ent, which includes Julox, Lil Rip and Double O Purv, among others, has churned out a posse record in every sense of the word with Da Good Da Bad and Ugly. While the rhyme schemes and flows of these MCs aren't necessarily impeccable, the simple production combined wi...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/various-artists/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/josh-quinlan-10-quintet/ After many years in Chicago, saxophonist Josh Quinlan moved to Colorado to work on his doctorate of music arts in jazz studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While here, in addition to teaching at Denver School of the Arts, he's also taken over the helm of Dazzle Recordings. It's no su...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/josh-quinlan-10-quintet/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/ben-knighten/ There is so much about this album that shouldn't work. For one thing, Ben Knighten's voice is the soft, Disney-caliber croon of road-trip montages and your grandmother's car stereo. For another, his backing instrumentation is sparse, less simple than it is frankly easy — or easy listening. ...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/ben-knighten/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/the-hate/ Starting things off with two pop-punk anthems, "Where Hope Lives" and "Rooftops," the Hate strikes a triumphant note on Authors, like a statement of purpose from a group of vital, snarling hellraisers, simultaneously channeling bits of the Sweet and Bad Religion and mixing them with a touc...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/the-hate/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/calling-out-west-gothic-theatre/ Reinvention has come relatively quickly for the members of Calling Out West. In 2009, the trio of guitarist Max Comer, bassist Cody Vinton and vocalist/drummer Jake Vinton expanded the band then known as the Side Project, adding guitarist Mike Anderson and drummer Zach Armijo. Starting with 2010'...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/calling-out-west-gothic-theatre/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/subb-an-techno-house-aamp/ It might seem that Subb-an has appeared on the scene overnight, but give him some credit: The guy's 24 years old, and considering that he started mixing tracks at the tender age of fourteen, he got here as fast as he could. He earned a prestigious degree in sound design from Birmingham Cit...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/music/subb-an-techno-house-aamp/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/culture/red-mark-rothko-curious-theatre-review/ Over the past year, Curious Theatre Company has given us a first-rate production of Pulitzer winner and Tony nominee Clybourne Park; 9 Circles, the regional premiere of a deeply humane investigation into the psyche of an American soldier on trial for war crimes; and now Red Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/culture/red-mark-rothko-curious-theatre-review/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/culture/twelfth-night-theater-review-arvada-center/ There are two major threads in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. There's the primary plot, in which Viola is shipwrecked in Illyria, decides to dress as a man and signs on as a servant to a local nobleman, Orsino, with whom she rapidly falls in love. But Orsino sends Viola off to court t...]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0600 http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/culture/twelfth-night-theater-review-arvada-center/ http://www.westword.com/2012-05-17/news/south-platte-river-improvements/ "Water World," Westword staff, May 10