The Blood Arm, Art Brut, the Hold Steady November 11, 2007 Fox Theater Better than: Spending yet another Sunday evening learning Art Brut and Hold Steady lyrics from the CD tray to impress people with the stupid things you say. Last night’s show at the Fox Theater in Boulder was…
The folks behind the 30th annual Starz Denver Film Festival didn’t discover Juno, the film at the center of the bash’s November 10 “Big Night” presentation at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The indie previously received major plaudits at festivals in Rome and Hollywood, and the buzz around its screenwriter,…
In his November 9 introduction for director Norman Jewison, the recipient of the Mayor’s Career Achievement Award at the 30th annual Starz Denver Film Festival, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper quoted dialogue from one of the less distinguished entries in the Jewison canon: Other People’s Money, a 1991 flick starring that…
Looks like we miscounted. In his November 11 column about the Bill Ritter-bashing front-page editorial that inspired this edition of the Message, Denver Post editorial page editor Dan Haley revealed that the broadsheet has published three other page-one salvos since 1946 — not two, as Rocky Mountain News media analyst…
It was all celluloid all the time this weekend as the 30th Denver Film Festival kicked off in fine fashion on Thursday and really got rolling through Sunday. I know they have a corporate sponsor, and to be really accurate I should call it the Starz Denver Film Festival, but…
Tonight, KBDI Channel 12 will repeat of “When Kids Get Life,” a Frontline special that profiled five young men in Colorado who received the mandatory sentence of life without parole when they were convicted of first-degree murder in adult court — even though they were juveniles when the crimes were…
You can call the Broncos’ season at the midway point at lot of things, but boring isn’t one of them. Boring? That’s going 10-6, finishing as a Wild Card team and getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. With our craptastic division, this team could still do that…
Here’s a selection of the best of last week’s music blogging from around the Village Voice media empire: Music, context and a dictatorial personality in a diminutive frame: A live review of MIA in San Francisco. What is the sound of one head banging? The http://blogs.clevescene.com/cnotes/2007/11/punkturnedpriest_brad_warner_t.php” target=”_blank”>tale of a punk…
Old magicians never die. They just disappear in a puff of smoke, usually through a trapdoor. When I heard that the New Denver Civic Theatre had actually booked a live magic show for the next four weeks, staged by up-and-vanishing illusionist Nick Felix, I knew I had to get Vel-Dini…
Whatever your punk poison, this Saturday’s Punk Rock Flea Market promises to have something for you. The monthly event features music on vinyl and CD, as well as tables set up by local bands, clothing shops, designers and artists. Presented by Suburban Home Records’ Vinyl Collective, the market is a…
Hip-Hop Live Featuring Brother Ali, Ghostface Killah, and Rakim Thursday, November 8 The Ogden Theatre Better Than: Seeing some hippie group ironically cover “Microphone Fiend” Hip-hop may be known for many things, but musicianship is not one of them. So last night’s “Hip-Hop Live” show – which featured Brother Ali,…
I forgot my cell phone yesterday, which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal; I’ve only recently started carrying one, owing to my unreasonable, Luddite-like hatred of the damned things. But the timing of my oversight in this case proved to be especially poor. Around midday, my wife, who’s…
While Coloradans raised their glasses last September in a coordinated toast to British beer expert and frequent Colorado visitor Michael Jackson, who died on August 30 at the age of 65, they will lower their glasses today to salute Earl Dodge, the six-time Prohibition Party presidential candidate and longtime Denver…
Watching the press conference where John Elway announced his retirement in 1998, I turned to a friend of mine to see he had tears streaming down his face. That is the only time I ever saw him cry, before or since. Not even when I kneed him in the junk…
No one can know what exactly will come from this current strike—but its potential to completely alter the landscape of television, should it drag on long enough, can’t be ignored. It’s one thing to complain about the talk-show reruns, or tire of the newsmagazines and reality shows that are produced…
Earlier this week, I started talking about a television revolution. It was going to come anyway, but the Writers’ Strike of 2007 is pushing the schedule forward a bit, or has the potential to do so, anyway. But even if the long-term ramifications of the strike are potentially dramatic, what…
Amid the commotion caused by the Denver Post’s front-page editorial on November 4 (click here for the story), another development involving the paper — an updated circulation report — has received only modest play. Nevertheless, the numbers are beyond dismal. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), a newspaper…
The November 8 Message column about an editorial attacking Governor Bill Ritter discusses Post owner/publisher Dean Singleton’s role in shaping the piece’s message and placing it on page one. But it doesn’t detail the item’s possible repercussions in the newsroom — one of several topics concerning staffers according to Post…
Oh, to be a fly on the wall. While researching recent prostitution busts in the city of Glendale, Westword came across audio recordings of these close encoutners between a Glendale cop and a few working girls. Below are two transcripts from these encounters: Transcript #1: Tatiana: Ok, I’m going to…
Two-thirds of the 10,000 people released from Colorado prisons on parole this year will be back behind bars by 2010. Parole revocations now account for 37% of all prison admissions in the state, costing close to $80 million a year. The reasons behind the staggering failure rate of parole have…
How small does an election have to be in order for Denver officials not to screw it up? Seriously — does the turnout have to be in the single digits for ballot hawks to come up with a final tally on the actual day of the vote? Why the hell…
Sure, you’ll be snowed by all the deals at the sixteenth annual Colorado Ski & Snowboard Expo, which turns the Colorado Convention Center into a giant temporary ski shop (with 20,000 square feet of inventory, as well as info from all 25 Colorado resorts) today through November 11. But there’s…
