May the Force Be with You

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a group of like-minded people came together to celebrate their two favorite things: literacy and Star Wars. And, like the movie series, their celebration lives on…and on. The second annual Star Wars Reads Day, an intergalactic holiday marked across the…

Seeing Stars

What’s an unconference? Basically, it’s by the people and for the people, a model that works just fine for this weekend’s SpaceUp Denver, which brings together regular folks with a shared interest in the mysteries of outer space during World Space Week. “SpaceUp is a template for a conference used…

Signing On

Taking a fresh approach to a familiar story, Rocky Mountain Deaf Theatre co-director Nicki Runge has adapted Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest into a conceptual, viewer-engrossing production. With a majority of the troupe’s actors being deaf and signing their dialogue (while others either sign and speak or…

Fright Night

Halloween is still weeks away, but this weekend’s Mile High Horror Film Festival has enough cannibals, zombies and demons to keep you good and terrified until it’s time to bust out that slutty pumpkin costume and beg for candy. With a full slate of new, independent horror films complemented by…

Colorful Humor

“Our family philosophy is don’t get mad, get funny,” says Keenen Ivory Wayans, co-founder and host of In Living Color, the ’90s sketch-comedy show that brought the styles and rhythms of black culture into the homes of mainstream America; the program also introduced the world to Jim Carrey, Jennifer Lopez…

It’s a Small World

For years, the University of Colorado at Boulder’s First Person Cinema series has quietly presented work by some of the best experimental filmmakers in the nation, and this time out is no different. The first of the season’s single-filmmaker showcases focuses on New York-based media artist Denise Iris, who works…

Garden State of Intoxication

Even if you’re not a gardener, you can appreciate the genius of the Drunken Botanist (aka Amy Stewart), whose book The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks landed on the New York Times bestseller list. “She’s incredibly engaging and quite entertaining,” says Sarah Olson, adult programs…

Heads Up

The Great American Beer Festival, which takes place annually in Denver, is the biggest and best sudstravaganza in the world. This year, the sold-out fiesta runs October 10-12 and features 626 breweries pouring an astounding 3,159 beers. But GABF is just the start. Beginning this weekend and continuing through next…

Return of the Native

Now in its tenth year, Denver’s Indigenous Film & Arts Festival continues to present a native- and third-world view through enlightening film screenings and other events. The multi-location, multicultural fest, this year themed “Connections,” begins to unreel tonight at 7 p.m. with a free screening of global shorts, a Q&A…

Family Politics

The ghost of Julius Rosenberg floats high above and around Amy Herzog’s drama After the Revolution, the story of a devoutly Marxist East Coast family clinging to the memory of patriarch Joe Joseph, a blacklisted American Red whose refusal to name names in a McCarthy-esque era continues to inspire the…

Relive the Classics

Just because nearly every classic film of note is available on disc or via streaming doesn’t mean that’s the best way to see it. There’s something electrifying about sitting in a darkened room with a few dozen appreciative fans while the action unfolds on a seventy-foot-wide screen. Denver film aficionados…

Podcast: Why Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is a near-perfect movie

On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek both praise Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock), saying the director exhibits a “lovely human touch” with film, which is set in space, and that it’s “so different than anything else he’s…

Now Showing: Nancy Smith and Patrick Mueller

For this year’s Now Showing, Westword’s fall arts guide (you’ll find it tucked into our September 26 issue), we asked artistic movers and shakers to answer a few questions about the state of the arts, both locally and around the world. We’ll be rolling out their answers over the next…

Blood, sweat and fashion: Colorado Fashion Week 2013 starts today

Justice Kwesi Kwarteng is smartly dressed and educated. Perhaps most important, the founder and creative director of Colorado Fashion Week, which starts today, has a quiet disposition. And that’s good, because with multiple events happening this week, the entity he created can become quite chaotic. See also:Colorado Fashion Week behind…