Director Shola Lynch has been mining the rich terrain of black American history for a while now, notably in the award-winning 2004 documentary Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed, about the 1972 presidential campaign by the late congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American and the first woman to mount a serious,…
An average episode of the 1989-1999 cable show Mystery Science Theater 3000, in which a man and his robot buddies heckle bad movies, runs about 90 minutes. The 1955 film This Island Earth is 87 minutes. The 1996 feature Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, in which the man and…
Though Charles Manson has been in prison for more than forty years, the gruesome murders that he instructed his cult-like commune to commit still haunt the American psyche. Jeff Guinn’s new book, Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson, offers fresh insight into the criminal sociopath’s mind gleaned through…
For the filmmakers behind 2012’s Punk Jews, talking about modern Jewish outsider art wasn’t just about sharing the story of Hasidic hardcore punks Moshiach Oi! That band is the focus of just one of the six segments in this hourlong documentary, which also profiles Orthodox rapper Y-Love, the Amazing Amy…
More than thirty local and national artists will be peddling pedal-themed posters at the fifth annual ARTCRANK Denver show, which happens to fall on the night before the USA Pro Challenge concludes in Denver. From its roots in Minneapolis, ARTCRANK has expanded to include bicycle-themed art shows in sixteen different…
Denver has been bursting at the seams with top-shelf comedy talent for the past several years. And so comic (and former Westword staffer) Adam Cayton-Holland feels it’s high time this city had a nationally recognized comedy festival to share space with music festivals like the Westword Music Showcase and the…
Winnie Wenglewick, the one-woman band behind Denver’s Dangerous Theatre, isn’t your typical live-theater auteur. Possessing inimitable verve as well as a cosmetology license, she got hooked on the stage long ago in Florida, where she volunteered with an Orlando comedy troupe — a gig that segued into a ten-year stint…
Standup comedian Marc Maron said a few years ago that he once planned to kill himself in his garage — and now, in that same garage, he’s doing the greatest work of his life, in the form of his WTF podcast, which primarily features interviews with other comedians. Maron’s self-loathing…
Alchemy may be beyond the reach of us mortals, but this weekend’s Fermentation Festival & Market will celebrate the next best thing: the process by which microbes transform mundane raw ingredients into delicious foods and beverages — everything from beer, cheese and pickles to kombucha, kefir and kimchi. Fermentation has…
The International Tour of Buddha Relics is also known as the Loving Kindness Tour, and everything about it supports that designation. “It’s a worldwide, free public exhibit of ancient and sacred relics of the historical Buddha and 44 other Buddhist masters from places like India, Tibet, Korea and China,” explains…
The first Denver Poets Day went down back in 1976 as a tribute to Neal Cassady that featured Allen Ginsberg at the mic. Since then, the event has recurred sporadically, drawing many of the region’s best and most revered poets to the stage, from Anne Waldman and the late Thomas…
Hip-swiveler Elvis Presley was no stranger to Hollywood’s sound stages: He made more than thirty movies during his career, which helped keep his heartthrob status ablaze for a decade and a half, beginning in the late ’50s. Early on, Elvis had to combat criticism from prudish detractors for his oversexed…
Denver attorney, author and well-regarded politico Adrian Miller has led not only a colorful life, but a delicious one: His gigs include moonlighting as a certified barbecue judge. Also a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization dedicated to the preservation and historical documentation of Southern-style cooking, the culinary…
Colorado’s chefs are called on so often to help with charitable projects, it’s amazing that they’re ever in their own kitchens. But the fundraising formula is surefire: People love food orgies, especially when the fare is prepared by top toques. So when the Colorado chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation…
In the world of In a World…, the directing debut of preternaturally understated comic actress Lake Bell, voiceover work — specifically, the authoritative yet anonymous man-speak heard in movie trailers — is a field in which women aren’t welcome. Bell, who also wrote the script, plays Carol, an underemployed vocal…
For its dead-of-summer August show, Sync Gallery, a 21-member collective in the Art District on Santa Fe, will present a fresh juxtaposition of wood-and-metal sculpture and surrealistic oil paintings in Unexpected and Impulse, a pair of shows by members Gary Manuel and Jen Zielinski, respectively. Manuel, notes Sync member and…
We’ve all heard the classic children’s tale of Peter Pan, the flying boy who wouldn’t grow up, but how did he get that way? That story is brought to light in Peter and the Starcatcher, the Broadway musical inspired by the kids’ bestseller by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. As…
A raft of satellite art shows will accompany this week’s 2013 Biennial of the Americas and its major Draft Urbanism exhibitions; to meet the challenge of addressing Biennial topics, RedLine Gallery teamed up with Mile High Connects and curator Cortney Lane Stell (who also curated First Draft, the 2013 BotA’s…
With school in session, students are bringing their personal style to campus. One trendsetter who deserves an A is Alex Eddy, a University of Colorado at Denver senior who was rocking a zebra frock with a punk attitude. Continue reading to learn about her style icons, where she shops and…
When Mike Berglund started throwing his annual Stripper-Palooza mini-festival over a half-decade ago, it wasn’t called Stripper-Palooza. If fact, it wasn’t about strippers at all — it was about getting friends together to share a meal and support local bands. But after a conversation at his local watering hole between…
Friends and filmmakers Jesse Zook Mann and Evan Kleinman decided to go deeper into Judaism, in search of the more edgy side of contemporary Jewish life, and the result was the documentary Punk Jews. It’s a sixty-minute, multi-faceted portrait of a global community, told in six stories, including that of…
While researching his new book on Charles Manson, Jeff Guinn was surprised to learn that the criminal sociopath’s explanation for the Tate-LaBianca murders, which he instructed his “family” of followers to commit, was nothing new. Through interviews with new sources, including Manson’s sister and cousin, Guinn discovered that even as…
