Like the microbreweries that began dotting the landscape in the 1980s, small urban wineries are now showing up in cities around the country. They typically buy their grapes from a supplier and then make their wine on site. Denver’s Infinite Monkey Theorem, which makes both reds and whites, is a…
The first annual Dog House Music Summer Block Party came together in such a way that it truly seems it was meant to be. “We have this special focal point coming, the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus,” explains Dog House’s Gary Lennox. Lennon was Lennox’s idol, and the latter’s been…
When Denver-based comics artist Amy Reeder Hadley started her manga series Fool’s Gold in 2006, her hip, fresh take on romance, action and magic brought her to the attention of Vertigo — the DC Comics imprint that launched Neil Gaiman’s career. Vertigo paired Hadley with veteran comics creator Matt Wagner,…
Artists and poets have long sought and found inspiration in the natural world and they way humanity fits into that world. Anne Waldman is no different; her new investigative hybrid poem, Manatee/Humanity, was conceptualized while looking at an old, scarred female manatee in Miami’s aquarium. “It was just an epiphany…
“With so many film festivals that are run around the country and so few documentary film festivals, I felt strongly that there should be a documentary festival here in Colorado that can hopefully become the preeminent documentary festival in the West,” says Wade Gardner, artistic director of the inaugural DocuWest…
Experience film and the urban environment in novel ways at Displacement: Cinema Out of Site, a collaborative project between TIE (The International Experimental Film Exposition) and the Gallery of Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Atop a public parking garage, filmmaker Christopher May of TIE will…
You want to convince a kid that science is cool? Well, is there any cooler application of the intensely nerdy study of physics, aerodynamics and engineering than the intensely awesome reality of a working jetpack? Tell said kid how they’re going to get airborne in one of those puppies. That’s…
People don’t typically associate mid-century modern architecture with Historic Denver, the city’s preeminent preservation advocacy group, but they should. “We want to educate our members about mid-century modern by highlighting its importance, so we’re focusing on it more and more as the buildings become fifty years old and older,” explains…
The organizers of the seventh annual Craft Lager Festival in Manitou Springs are thankful that the hot sun makes people want to drink lighter, lager-style beers and thankful that it will be powering the festival via its rays. They’re also thankful for how quickly their event has grown. “It’s just…
Recognizing the diversity of cultures united by soccer, the Colorado Rapids will host eight different heritage nights throughout this season. “Previous nights have included Celtic Night and Asian-Pacific Night,” says marketing coordinator Chris Greenley. “Each heritage night targets different members of our team in order to celebrate our players and…
The cult that’s assembled around 2001’s Donnie Darko, which gets the Film on the Rocks treatment on Wednesday, August 12, seems motivated more by the size of writer/director Richard Kelly’s ambitions than by the goals he actually achieves. Simply put, the story of a troubled teen (Jake Gyllenhaal during his…
Iraqi artist Hakim Alkarim, who now lives here, expresses unique experiences shaped by continued strife in his homeland in many forms, from beautiful environmental installations informed by Iraqi history to The Witness Archive, a series of spooky portraits that stretch their photographic roots to reveal the bare ectoplasm behind every…
During the many years I’ve been paying attention to art in Colorado, there’s one thing that’s always bugged me: people in positions of power or influence who dismiss it or degrade it. There are many reasons for this, but my favorite is when these detractors project their own low self-esteem…
Charles Parson. This must-see sculpture solo titled Charles Parson: Personal Echoes on the Horizon, at Golden’s Foothills Art Center, begins out front with a trio of hieratically composed tubular metal sculptures — basically gongs. The viewer/participant is meant to strike the gongs with clappers that are chained to them. This…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
The opening frames of Pressure Cooker, a documentary debuting at Starz FilmCenter on Friday, July 31, serve the same sort of dish as Hell’s Kitchen, Fox TV’s restaurant survival test. Wilma Stephenson, a culinary-arts teacher at Frankford High School in inner-city Philadelphia, is seen barking at her cooking students like…
After devoting his first two films as director, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, to getting laid and having kids, respectively, Judd Apatow brings the circle of life to a close with Funny People, which stars Adam Sandler as George Simmons, a popular, Sandler-esque movie star diagnosed with…
An afternoon breeze blows through an open doorway under the opening titles of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata, portending a coming storm and the more violent winds of change about to uproot the lives of the movie’s characters. A bottled message cast from the shores of an economy whose implosion anticipated…
PHAMALY’s production of Man of La Mancha is a triumph. Not because the vitality and momentum of this very fine musical make you forget that all the performers in the PHAMALY company are disabled — some in wheelchairs, some stumbling, some unable to see. And not because these actors are…
Harold Pinter’s Old Times is a three-person fugue with strong currents of sexual rivalry. At the start, Deeley and Kate, a married couple, are awaiting the arrival of Kate’s old friend Anna – who is actually on stage with them, her back to the audience. No sooner does Anna move…
There’s nothing new under the sun — and that proverb especially applies to the film world. It seems like Hollywood just can’t leave a great movie alone; every year, the industry remakes at least one awesome film, turning memorable characters and riveting plots into unwatchable shlock. That’s why film buffs…
The opening frames of Pressure Cooker, a documentary debuting at Starz FilmCenter on Friday, July 31, serve the same sort of dish as Hell’s Kitchen, Fox TV’s restaurant survival test. Wilma Stephenson, a culinary-arts teacher at Frankford High School in inner-city Philadelphia, is seen barking at her cooking students like…
