Bridalplasty: American culture has reached its nadir

In a move so stunningly repulsive it literally fills the soul with nihilistic despair, the entertainment network E! announced a show today that reaches a heretofore unfathomable low of cultural bankruptcy: Bridalplasty. In the show, women will compete to win operations from their plastic surgery “wish list” in advance of…

Get your Spanish on at Museo de las Americas tonight

When I was a Spanish minor in college, I realized toward the middle of my degree that there was only one way to learn — to really learn — a foreign language: to speak it. As much grammar as I knew (and I got really into the grammar — I’m…

I’m Still Here and five other elaborate media fake-outs

Last year, Joaquin Phoenix was leaving acting. After the release of Two Lovers, Phoenix grew a large beard, announced he would be pursuing a career in rapping and seemed utterly to implode, beginning with a bizarre, apparently drug-addled appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. During that interview, Letterman…

This week’s most ridiculous trailer: Alpha and Omega

Lord love them, but little kids don’t have the most refined senses of humor — it’s a fact that they will watch anything as long as it’s animated and someone takes a projectile to the balls every once in a while. Which is all fine and good, but kids don’t…

Video games scientifically proven to be good for you, sort of

In a strange twist on common intuition, researchers at the University of Rochester in New York released a study yesterday that showed shoot-em-up video games may engender better and faster decision making skills among players, indicating that such games may actually be producing men of action. Who would indeed take…

The Mexican Consulate gets down for the Bicentennial Celebration

When the Mexican Consul General gets onstage and sings lead for the band — and has the crowd singing along with him — you will know that Mexico knows how to party. And Consul Eduardo Arnal wasn’t half bad, either: Belting them out in a solid tenor, he hammed it…

Barack Obama, now officially the Chuck Norris of presidents

Say what you will about his policies, but it’s pretty much official at this point that Barack Obama is the most accomplished individual since Leonardo Da Vinci. For one thing, he’s president of the United States — which, okay, George W. took a little of the prestige out of that…

Claire from Amazing Race stars in your moment of schadenfreude

Like a kid too excited by the birthday present he got his mom to wait until her actual birthday, CBS released a clip this week from Amazing Race, which doesn’t debut until a week from Sunday, that was too awesome to keep under wraps. The video features Claire, one of…

Shoot to Thrill in Telluride

If there are two things Telluride loves, it’s festivals and, in the midst of the spectacular fall colors, outdoor photography. Now, for the first time, somebody has thought to put the two together. “When I first moved here in 2000, that was my first full festival season,” says Eric Moore,…

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

As evidenced by Bob Saget’s post-Full House career, there’s an entire niche of people out there in the market for shock comedy; really, the guy’s whole shtick is pretty much based on unsettling sexual references to Kimmy Gibbler. And if you’re one of those filth-mongering folks, then Dirty, Rotten, Filthy,…

The Life and Times

Art, it’s been said, is a mirror for life — and if that’s the case, then Bovine Metropolis is taking that credo a little further than usual. In Biography: Life as Comedy, the improv troupe takes interviews with everyday people and turns them into fodder for sketches, riffing, poetry —…

Kim Kardashian vs. The Mona Lisa: France loses

Proving once and for all that French people are just as vacuous as Americans, Kim Kardashian set off an explosion of fanboyism during a visit today to one of the world’s most prominent mainstays of good taste: the Louvre. Like a black hole of culture, the Kardashians’ appearance at the…

Celebrate Mexico’s bicentennial… with zombies

Is there anything that can’t be made 65 percent more awesome with the addition of zombies? Most evidence points to “no,” and this trailer for Zombies del Bicentenario (Zombies of the Bicentennial) just adds one more entry to that list of evidence. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it…

Happy birthday, Heidi Montag: Your life sucks

It’s been a weird week for Colorado’s favorite prodigal daughter. On Saturday, in possibly the most depressing reconciliation ever to take place, Heidi Montag made up with until-recently estranged husband Spencer Pratt after — get this — the two were detained for twelve hours by Costa Rican authorities after two…

Gratuitous Randomness: Lawn gnomes

Because it’s a slow news day, each Wednesday, we bring you the best of our weird internetz world in a collection of loosely related items about whatever topic we happen to come up with. Today, in honor of the San Luis Obispo Police Department’s ridiculous press release warning parents about…

Denver is a “Hotbed of Sex”

If you need more proof than just the general appearance of Westword’s editorial staff that Denver is a sexy, sexy city, then look no further than Men’s Health magazine, which confirms this week what everybody already knows: Denver loves the sex. We love the sex so much, in fact, that…

The Denver Zine Library brings an international tour into its new space

It takes a certain type of tenacity to be a zinester: an unmitigated openness, an unrelenting inquisitiveness, a borderline-pathological need for self-expression that’s undaunted in the face of limited resources. The Denver Zine Library knows all about that: After an extended absence with the majority of its collection in storage,…

A spastic cat stars in your moment of schadenfreude

Cats. They’re like the most popular girl in high school: They’re aloof, they think they’re smarter than you, and the more you love them, the more they don’t care about you. Unlike the most popular girl in high school, though, you can amuse them endlessly by cutting a hole in…