Let me tell you all the good things about Nicolas Winding Refn’s high-art, lowbrow horror film The Neon Demon before I tell you what I will not tolerate. After Drive, Refn seems obsessed with his idea of Los Angeles, one where there’s always a full moon, no traffic and everyone…
People made a stink about the walkouts during the Sundance premiere of music-video-and-advertising geniuses the Daniels’ first feature film, Swiss Army Man. It stars Daniel Radcliffe (Manny) as a farting, rotting corpse with superpowers and Paul Dano (Hank) as a sad-sack suicidal stalker trying to get home through a forest…
Can Steven Spielberg do comedy? That seems like a dumb question, since nobody has done more to bring wit to the modern blockbuster; Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jaws boast as many laugh-out-loud moments as they do thrills. But those gags are often incidental, of the tension-breaking kind. When…
At last, a Hollywood reimagining with a point. David Yates’ two-fisted pulp-studies spree The Legend of Tarzan doesn’t just update Edgar Rice Burroughs’ white-boy jungle-bro for our age of heightened sensitivities and bit rates. It interrogates the very idea of Tarzan, signing the old sport up for the good fight…
An unlikely buddy comedy-drama about the friendship between a suicidal castaway played by Paul Dano and a flatulent corpse played by Daniel Radcliffe, Swiss Army Man doesn’t seem like the kind of movie you’d watch with your mother. So what was it like to be the mothers of the film’s…
According to IMDb, Jaume Collet-Serra’s over-before-you-know-it The Shallows runs for one hour and 27 minutes — a number that produces a reaction something like when an NBA roster lists a short-looking player at five-foot-nine and you marvel, Really? Nate Robinson is that tall? The shark thriller has only three or…
Very few advance screenings preceded Independence Day: Resurgence’s arrival in theaters on the evening of June 23. That’s eight days ahead of the July 4th weekend that in simpler times — like 1996, when Independence Day was the year’s biggest hit — was traditionally reserved for the biggest, ka-blammiest movie of the…
Last week’s Bike to Work Day in Golden kicked off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Visitors Center, where Mayor Marjorie Sloan dedicated the brand-new Golden Bike Library, a bike-share program for residents, visitors, students and workers in the town that’s distinct from Denver’s B-cycle, and designed with families in…
When it’s hot outside, Fashion Denver’s Brandi Shigley heads for the pool, and on Sunday, June 26, she brought the Splash Fashion Market along for the swim. While hand-picked Denver designers and businesses showcased their wares poolside, all the fashionistas got cool at the pool. All photos by Ken Hamblin…
David Schmader is a legend in Seattle, where he writes for alternative newspaper The Stranger and serves as creative director for an award-winning nonprofit writing center, the Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas. He’s also an essayist, performance artist, podcast guest (listen to him on Dan Savage’s 500th episode of the Savage Lovecast) and marijuana…
The first time I saw a work by Thaddeus Phillips, a Denver native who now runs Philadelphia-based Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental, was at Buntport Theater on a cold night in 2001. The piece was called Shakespeare’s Storms and there were around fifteen people in the audience — two of them being me…
In 2011, five talented Denver high-school grads dropped out of college after their freshman year and formed a theater troupe. Crossroads Theater, a 105-seat venue on Welton Street then managed by the City of Denver, was the first place to give the group a chance. The city was offering cheap…
#76: Bianca Mikahn Poet, hip-hop musician, healer of social woes, youth mentor, activist, goddess — these are just a few of the hats that Denver native Bianca Mikahn wears as she dances through life, touching lives with her lyrical voice and a helping hand. Mikahn’s work places her on many…
At the intermission of Equivocation, this summer’s traditional non-Shakespeare-but-related-to-Shakespeare offering from the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, I found myself exultant, almost floating along the aisle to the lobby. I’m so grateful to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival for bringing us this play, I said to a friend. It’s brilliant. And so it…
As many Coloradans know all too well, law-enforcement agents of this country’s less-enlightened states deliberately and systemically profile Colorado drivers in an attempt to bust them with legal weed. On June 13, beloved Denver comedian Jay Gillespie found himself targeted in Childress, Texas, where a routine traffic stop led to…
“This is an area that’s been long neglected in terms of infrastructure, and that’s one of our major intents — to bring greater connectivity to this northeast Denver community,” says Will Kralovec, director of master site development for the Urban Land Conservancy, which is leading the community-driven development of 303…
When it comes to biking, what’s gonzo to one rider may be nothing but sweet singletrack to another. Colorado has a staggering variety of trails that appeal to all skill levels, but the routes that demand total concentration and titanium-steely nerve — steep, switchback-y, technical, rocky, rooted out and rutted…
This week you can take in fabulous fiction, environmental activism or hard-driving slam poetry this week in bookstores and on stages along the Front Range. Word! Benjamin Hale, The Fat Artist & Other Stories Boulder Book Store 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 28 $5 voucher required If you like fiction that…
Enjoy these last days of June by discovering new tunes, catching a movie or traveling to galaxies far, far away. We’ve rounded up our favorite free events below; check out the Westword calendar for even more to do around Denver. Record Swap Vinyl Nights Ratio Beerworks 5 p.m. Tuesday, free…
During last weekend’s Denver Comic Con at the Colorado Convention Center, the streets of Denver were full of people wearing costumes saluting their favorite comics characters and superheroes, in a celebration of the scene. But one spectator was not impressed. Says Amanda: Dressing up in black and red lingerie and calling…
David Kimball, the longtime senior regional publicist for Landmark Theatres, is leaving Denver this weekend to return to his hometown of Tulsa. He left this goodbye letter to his adopted hometown: There are so many things I’ll miss about Denver when I move away soon. Here are just a few:…
This weekend in Denver galleries — and other unexpected places — you’ll a grab-bag of experiences, from giant bunnies to a temple to the joke, with interludes both meditative and peaceful in between. Peoplescapes and Intrude Republic Plaza Now, through August 17 Arts Brookfield brings a new group show, Peoplescapes,…
