Midnight Maniac

When Gene Siskel walks out of your movie a half-hour into it, you just might have a cult classic on your hands. The iconic television personality and film critic reportedly drew the line on 1980’s Maniac during the film’s notorious “Disco Boy” scene, in which effects guy Tom Sevini, here…

Talking Pants

Eve Ensler first performed her off-Broadway sensation The Vagina Monologues in 1996; since then, the series of monologues about vaginas and the women who possess them has turned into an international phenomenon. Perhaps it’s because this little play that could speaks to so many aspects of women’s experiences, or maybe…

The Edge: Westword’s Winter Activity Guide 2010-2011

Winter storms have been hammering the mountains, and early-season sliding is already afoot: Ski and snowboard season is upon us. Our annual winter activity guide is here to help. We tracked down more than two dozen intrepid explorers with expertise on each local mountain to give you the inside edge…

Tonight: Itchy-O trashes the Disaster House

You know the drill: House gets messed up, tool-lugging good guys come in and save the day. That’s the constantly replaying plot on the DIY Network’s Disaster House, where the destruction is creative, but the denouement workman-like. Still, trying to figure out how Denver techno-guerrilla marching band Itchy-O got in…

Free Movie Time: Legends of Flight 3D at IMAX

Boeing’s 787 “Dreamliner” has been a public relations disaster. Rolled out in 2007, the plane was billed as the future of air-travel: a sleek, efficient long-distance jetliner made with composite materials that consumes 20 percent less fuel than carriers of a similar size. Three years later, due to myriad materials…

Five greatest moments in unboxing history

In this era of online ordering, getting stuff in the mail is much more common than it was a decade ago. No longer are consumers forced to wait in long lines, dealing with other people’s smells and peanut gallery comments. Yes, we’re in the midst of an unboxing trend that…

Today In Stoke: Ski Boot Camp at Outdoor Divas, Boulder

Today’s a powder day at Loveland (6″ in the last 24 hours), A-Basin (4″), Wolf Creek (6″), Copper (7″), and Keystone (5″) — the first five out of the gates this season. Breckenridge opens on Friday, followed by Winter Park (November 17) and Vail (November 19). If you haven’t whipped…

Is this a UFO over Denver?

It was just a week ago that Denver voters overwhelmingly rejected Initiative 300, which would have required the city to create a government-sponsored commission to study extraterrestrials — many officials and voters feared such a commission would make Denver “a laughingstock.” To those people, we say, where is your God…

Browser game of the week: Armed With Wings 3

It has been almost two years since Sun Studios released Armed With Wings 2, and although we had no idea a third one was coming, it was a welcome sight to see. Armed With Wings 3 is simple to describe on first glance: It’s a puzzle-platformer game that tasks you…

Gratuitous Randomness: The many faces of Richard Nixon

Of all the U.S. presidents — George W. notwithstanding — Richard Nixon might have been the most unintentionally hilarious. A dour, glowering grinch with a cat’s disposition and a simian’s posture, Nixon nevertheless had a surprisingly expressive face, in a silly-putty sort of way, that makes his goofy faces that…

Tonight: William S. Burroughs rides again

More than two decades ago, freelance writer Gregory Daurer thought it would be cool to track down William S. Burroughs at Naropa and hook him up to a brain machine. Audio excerpts of Daurer’s interview with Burroughs surface in a new documentary on the outlaw novelist playing tonight at 7…

Five Thanksgiving traditions that need improvement, American-style

Hundreds of years ago, America was not much to look at — just a backwoods berg with a bunch of British prudes who wore clothes with too many buckles and couldn’t make it through the winter without help from the local natives, to whom they returned the favor with smallpox…

Studio Shots: Marie Gibbons, EvB Studios

Before October, I don’t think I’d touched a lump of clay for at least thirty years. When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to take ceramics from the great local wood-fired pottery guru Mark Zamantakis, and that romp in the clay was delicious; though I couldn’t throw…

Conan’s new show: Basically the same as the old show, except on TBS

Since sometime circa the late ’90s, Conan O’Brien has been the best of the late-night talk-show hosts. While Jay Leno did jokes so tame they would’ve felt just as at-home coming from a purple cartoon dog in the middle of the afternoon, Conan’s formula continued to feel fresh and relevant…

Last night: Call of Duty: Black Ops midnight release

There have been rumors on the Internet the last few days saying that Call of Duty: Black Ops might be the biggest launch in video-game history — which is actually saying quite a bit, considering people were saying the exact same thing last year about another game in the series,…