National Anathem

In Anathem, author Neal Stephenson, who’ll share his new book with the public tonight, presents a cadre of teenage monks on the fictional but notably Earth-like planet of Arbe who live outside the rush and bustle of normal society — and their essential separateness allows them to filter out what’s…

Moon Songs

Because music journalist Tom Moon shares my kind of pan-musical taste, his new listening guide, 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (a companion of sorts to Patricia Schultz’s enormously popular 1,000 Places to See Before You Die), had me hooked from the first page: A well-thought-out crazy quilt of…

The Dandy Warhols

The acclaimed documentary DiG! spotlighted the late 1990s ascent of pretentious psych-lite outfit the Dandy Warhols, but by the time the film hit theaters in 2004, the band was on a slippery descent. Having alienated fans with the new-wave redux of Welcome to the Monkey House, the group was gearing…

Cthulhu does Lovecraft some justice

The history of film adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft is almost universally atrocious, so understand that saying Cthulhu is among the best movies based on his work is damnation by faint praise — like saying someone is the kindest of serial killers. Set in the very near future,…

Flick Pick

The history of film adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft is almost universally atrocious, so understand that saying Cthulhu is among the best movies based on his work is damnation by faint praise — like saying someone is the kindest of serial killers. Set in the very near future,…

Cheap, Easy Web

While reading Seventeen’s latest issue, I found out about a website that has everything from apparel to costumes. The best part…great prices! We would all love to have the time to go out to shop, but with school, homework, studying, and jobs, it can be hard to find the extra…

Secondhand Sartorialism: Nothing New Under the Sun

My obsession with vintage clothing has been a large part of who I am for about as long as I can remember. Sure, some could interpret such an obsession as my just being superficial, but I like to think of myself as someone who has an eye for quality and…

Incroyables by Melissa May Spring 2009 Fashion Show

Melissa May, one of Denver’s most talented local fashion designers, will be premiering her retro beach inspired Spring 2009 line tonight at 9 p.m. at the Colorado History Museum, 1300 Broadway. Followers of the Denver fashion scene will no doubt have seen May’s work by now, but this is her…

William Stockman focuses on the figure at Ironton Studios

Over the last quarter-century, old-fashioned representational imagery has supplanted abstraction, which had dominated most of the cutting-edge art of the twentieth century and become the preeminent expression in the fine arts internationally. It’s not that abstraction is passé; it’s just that more and more artists have embraced the figure to…

Steven Turner leaves Historic Denver behind

Last week, the Colorado Historical Society announced that Steven Turner will become the director of the State Historical Fund. That means that Turner is resigning as the director of Historic Denver. The promotion is good news for those of us who appreciate the old buildings of Denver. Not because Turner…

Capsule reviews of current shows

Bubs. This is a play accompanied by songs, a concert yoked to a narrative, with the elements held together by the talent and energy of actor-singer Erik Sandvold. Writers Cy Frost and Doug Olson came up with the idea of showcasing a slew of different performers, all played by one…

Starship Troopers

The movie Starship Troopers is an utter failure as an adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s revered classic science-fiction novel, which is enough to damn it in the eyes of many fans. But if you can get past that, you’ll enjoy the film on its own merits. Like director Paul Verhoeven’s first…

Ricky Gervais sees dead people in Ghost Town

It takes a good while for Ricky Gervais to warm up in Ghost Town; it takes even longer for the audience to warm to Ricky Gervais. During the opening minutes of Ghost Town — an occasionally effective mash-up of Ghost, The Sixth Sense and The Frighteners — Gervais, as Bertram…

Racial tension lives nextdoor in Neil LaBute’s Lakeview Terrace

Earlier this year, when I found myself assigned to jury duty on a drug-related trial at the Los Angeles Superior Court, our jury foreman turned out to be a blond, blue-eyed reality-TV producer from the bedroom community of Altadena. During the jury-selection process, when the judge asked if we had…

Avenue Q brings puppetry of the people to Denver

Most of the characters in Avenue Q are college graduates in that in-between stage — bright and literate, finished with school but not ready for the daily grind of making a living — and they’ve congregated on New York’s grungy Avenue Q. Idealistic Kate is a kindergarten teacher and also…

Still Catching the Wave

From the standpoint of 2008, the French new wave that broke half a century ago is a towering monument to a particular moment — a solitary whitecap in a Courbet seascape. What was that surge? As a film critic or a filmmaker (or, in most cases, both), each of the…

Capsule Reviews of Current Exhibits

Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The fall opener at the Center for Visual Art is a conscientious survey of the careers of Christo and Jeanne-Claude as seen through their personal print collection documenting their pioneering conceptual work that began in the 1960s. The exhibit, which includes more than a hundred works of…

Children of the Corn

Okay, so there’s about a week left till Halloween. You know what that means to me? It means that if I get started now, I might be able to make it through every last one of the myriad mazes and haunted houses that the metro area has to offer, starting…

Make fashion out of food for the Whole Foods Challenge

Remember how the designers got all crafty and constructed sweaters out of mop heads and dresses out of plastic cups in the first episode of the current season of Project Runway? Well, with the Whole Foods Challenge you, too, can construct fashion out of food and food-related products and you’ll…

Style Swap

Style trends are changing almost everyday. Five days a week, I am confined to the halls of my school, where I see teen fashion all around me. What happens when guys and girls swap their “norms” of style? I see the guys taking on skinny jeans — tighter then the…

The hipsters of Monolith

Slide show Plenty of people had a fashion statement to make at last weekend’s Monolith festival. Don’t believe me? Check out the slide show and vote for your favorite hipster. Nothing like watching all the hipsters trying to out hip each other…