A guy trying to jump over a car stars in your moment of lulz

For nearly as many years as the old jump-slide-across-the-hood trick has been a part of the lore of buddy-cop movies and The Dukes of Hazzard alike, the old try-to-jump-over-something-and-fall trick has been a time-honored gag in failure caught on video. But that doesn’t make it any less funny when it…

Aaron Carter and Charlie Sheen, is Twitter a celebrity death machine?

As a social phenomenon, probably the most interesting thing about celebrity death hoaxes is that they are a social phenomenon at all. There’s no point to them. They’re not particularly funny (aside from the resulting lulz if the celebrity in question gets all offended about it), and they have the…

Made in Dagenham recalls the ’68 strike for equal pay

Wimmin power retrofitted as holiday heart-stirrer, Made in Dagenham recounts the real-life 1968 strike for equal pay by the 187 distaff machinists at the Ford plant twelve miles outside London. These unwitting soixante-huitards in Mary Quant hot pants and five-story bouffants are led by Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins), forced to…

The ten best movies of 2010

Sold — and bought — as the year’s most “intelligent” blockbuster while actually baldly insulting its audience’s intelligence, Inception both conquered the 2010 zeitgeist and helped define it. It was merely the biggest rendition of the year’s most prevalent movie theme: How do you know that what you think is…

Congratulations, Crystal Harris, on your engagement to Hugh Hefner

Sorry to let you down, ladies, but it seems Hugh Hefner — commonly known as “The Sexiest 84-year-old since Bea Arthur died” — went ahead and put a ring on it. The lucky lady? The 24-year-old Crystal Harris, who made her name on the reality series The Girls Next Door,…

Studio Shots: Wazee Union

How do you get kickstarted when you’re a young artist, right out of art school with nothing lining your pockets but a smudge of paint and a fierce desire to put your talent on the map? For some lucky emerging artists in Denver, it all starts with a good studio…

The Beating Ski & Snowboard Film Fest returns to Silverton on New Year’s Day

In September I reported from The Meeting, Aspen’s 6th annual ski and snowboarding film festival showcasing most of the year’s big-budget snow-porn flicks. Not hardcore enough for you? The Beating is Silverton’s answer to The Meeting, an amateur film-shorts competition as different from Aspen’s festival as Silverton Mountain is from…

Gettin’ Crafty: swanky New Year’s shrug

​​For all those who give pom-pom critters for birthdays, feel an urge to stick googly eyes on everything or just occasionally get a twitch to fold some origami, we bring you “Gettin’ Crafty” where we feature a craft you can easily make with minimal supplies and limited finances. So Santa…

Study yields unsurprising results: Excessive online gaming has consequences

It’s probably significant that Sabrina Neu originally wanted to look into substance abuse issues among students. “But that’s something that’s been done quite a bit,” says Neu, who ended up looking into the effects of massive multiplayer online video gaming for her doctoral thesis at University of the Rockies in…

My crazy Christmas: Westword writers share their holiday stories

Christmas can be intense: Rife with familial undercurrents and financial strain, the yuletide can bring a time of crushing disappointment, dissolving relationships, mounting tension and exploding tempers — but if we open our hearts and we wish hard enough, it just might also be a time of redemption. As it…

Generation Gap

John Madden is a big-time office developer, and one of his best-known buildings is the Palazzo Verdi, a glam-Italianate tower near the Denver Tech Center that was designed by Curt Fentress. But Madden and his wife, Marjorie, are serious art collectors, too. And among the many amenities of the glitzy…

Cave Woman

Boulder artist Rebecca DiDomenico calls herself a maker. “I was just born like that; I can’t help it,” she says. “I’m a maker: I like to make things with my hands. I once tried to meditate, and I was a miserable failure at it. My meditation teacher said to me,…

Young Converts

Just as it is in science, technology and Internet dating, in the art world, newer is better. This is partly the spirit behind Robischon Gallery’s EYTJ (Even Younger Than Jesus), a provocatively titled show that brings together new artists who are younger than Jesus was when he died — in…

Whistlin’ Dixie

Dixie Longate is Tupperware’s top saleswoman. But it didn’t start out that way. She first got into Tupperware in 2001. “As part of the conditions for my parole, I had to get a job to get my kids back,” she says. “Which is so stupid, ’cuz I didn’t even want…

Bad Elf

Screaming children, department stores, seasonal jobs, green velvet costumes. These are just a few staples of the holiday spirit, and it’s this madness that writer David Sedaris covered in SantaLand Diaries, an essay about his day-to-day life as an elf at Macy’s that first appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition in…

Light Bright

“I don’t know if it’s something that we’re taught as small children, or just the fact that they’re so beautiful to see,” notes the Denver Botanic Gardens’ Will Jones, “but a lot of people come back year after year because they have a great experience individually, and it becomes a…

Lights, Camera, Animals

Zoo Lights enters its twentieth year tonight, and this edition offers plenty of reasons to make the trip. In addition to the more than 150 animated light sculptures over 38 acres, there will be breakfast and dessert buffets with Santa, live ice sculpting and fire dancing, a Kwanzaa celebration and…

A Festivus for the Depressed of Us

Like an overinflated balloon, the holidays strain at the seams with cultural expectation—the good cheer, the idyllic family life, the perfect gift for that special someone. It’s a pretty picture few actual lives can match, and for most, it all adds up to little more than disappointment and deflated hopes…

Tinsel and Tassles

Every holiday is more fun with a little something that starts with the letter “b.” Booze? Boobs? “Both,” says Michelle Scheffer, who makes up half of Ooh La La Burlesque and is probably better known by her alter ego, Fanny Fitztightlee. Ooh La La’s fourth annual Fuck Christmas Party will…