Searing Debut Krisha Makes Hell Out of Coming Home

Brash yet intimate, writer-director-editor Trey Edward Shults’ observant, unnerving first feature transcends the notion of a “promising debut.” Here, the promise is already fulfilled on the screen, which bustles with chaotic family life — and prickles with anxiety. Krisha is a heartsick family story that plays as psychological horror, its…

The Ten Best Stores on Colfax Avenue

Oh, Colfax. It’s hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to this avenue’s spotty history, but one thing is certain: This street is home to some of Denver’s best restaurants, bars, venues and retailers. To survive and thrive along the longest main street in the country takes not…

Three Things to Do for Free in Denver, March 21-24

The sun’s staying out late and you should be, too: There’s plenty to do around Denver that won’t empty your wallet. This week we’re nerding out, getting quizzed and laughing at lectures. Check out the Westword calendar for more to do, and let us know in the comments section if…

Mike Giant Makes a Big Mark on the Art World From Boulder

Mike Giant is a veteran artist of almost three decades, an OG in the graffiti game — but also a practicing Buddhist with an awe-inspiring presence.  A transplant to Colorado who arrived almost two years ago, Giant works in a big garage studio behind his property in Boulder, continuing a…

Gallery Sketches: Five New Shows in Denver March 18-20

It’s a busy weekend for Denver’s art districts and galleries, with the daylong, citywide Mo’Print studio tours on Saturday, photography from the frontier, an out-of-this-world group show, and a flurry of one-person displays by Denver favorites working in every medium under the sun. What are you waiting for? Here are the…

MCA Denver Will Reward Failure With a College Scholarship: Apply Now!

This could be the most creative college scholarship idea ever, one that awards students for creativity, innovation — and the willingness to risk failure.  Offered by the Museum of Contemporary Arts Denver, the Failure Fair Scholarship is an annual scholarship award open to all graduating, college-bound, Colorado high-school seniors. Explains…

Netflix’s Pee-wee’s Big Holiday Made Us Cry Literal Tears of Joy

That light-gray Glen plaid suit, topped with a bright-red bowtie and white kicks. That precociously naive predilection for absurdly oversized or miniaturized household gadgets. Those impatient eye rolls, mischievous tongue darts and sweetly demented giggles. The fizzy comic persona of Pee-wee Herman dates back to the late ’70s, when Groundlings…

100 Colorado Creatives 3.0: Daniel Landes

#91: Daniel Landes A writer, publisher, restaurateur, cook, and arts and literary community-builder, Dan Landes does the Renaissance-man thing the 21st-century way: He oversees the day-to-day at his hip eatery City, O’City, which also serves as a base for the upstairs performance space Deer Pile and the adjacent 1280 Sherman…

Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendor Finds Life in the Unconscious

The seemingly stark divide between sleep and wakefulness serves as the main motif in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendor, which allegorizes the history of Thailand as deepest REM slumber. Weerasethakul’s works are sensory delights, haunted, if obliquely, by Thailand’s violent political past and still fractious present. A film about the…

Last Chance to Enter the Fourth Annual Westword Comics Contest!

To celebrate the inaugural Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo, we’ll publish our fourth annual Comics issue on March 24 — and you can be a part of it. We’re accepting submissions from any Colorado artist who wants to create a cartoon about life in the centennial State — whether…