What Lena Dunham’s panties say about the world

Internet assholes are always yelling about what Lena Dunham doesn’t wear on Girls, but let’s talk about something she does. Bros who think everything should be marketed to them never get tired of pointing out that Dunham’s Hannah Horvath seems to be topless more often than not, a point of…

Greatness emerges at the year’s first major film festival

If Sundance signals the annual launch of American indie cinema’s new product line, the 63-year-old Berlin Film Festival (February 7-17) offers the year’s first major look at what the rest of the world has to offer. In addition to the nineteen-film official competition — this year presided over by jury…

Dance To Be Free

Counter to the usual Valentine’s Day activities we all know and only some of us love, V-Day, the global activist movement started fifteen years ago today by Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler, shines its light on a different aspect of love: respect for and solidarity with women who have been…

Singles Love

You don’t need to find a Valentine for the Singles Day Soiree: This shindig is all about the single life. Taking over the main floor of the Jet Hotel, the party will offer plenty of activities that encourage singles to mingle, including free shots (from 9 to 11 p.m.), interactive…

Get Real

With its bizarre onslaught of sentient drugs, invisible aliens and time-tripping insanity, Don Coscarelli’s John Dies at the End is like no film you’ve seen before. “It’s about a silent inter-dimensional invasion of our reality, focusing on two college-dropout slackers who find themselves with the fate of the world in…

Your Funny Valentine

For those with laughable love lives, or even attached couples who’d rather chuckle than go out to a swanky dinner, the Colorado Comedy Coalition is putting on a show at the Voodoo Comedy Playhouse that’s all about amour. Featuring performances by comedians Chris Miller, Kristin Rand, Willie Red, Derrick Culver,…

It Takes Brass

Since its beginnings in the 1970s, the Big Band Boogie Bash has been an annual tradition for college and high-school big bands. For the past decade, the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts — a thirteen-year-old mentoring program that teaches middle- and high-school students about jazz performance, history and language…

Believe It or Not

Geeks, rejoice! There’s nerd love in the air, and Harry Potter heads, Tolkien fans, Trekkies, gamers and cosplayers of all types are invited to tonight’s Nerd Love Is True Love: A Science Fiction/Fantasy Sing-Along and Sale. At the gathering, organized by Tolkien discussion society the Grey Havens Group, participants will…

Kilts in Action

If you’ve ever had a hankering to be served by gentlemen in kilts, this is your lucky day: The Colorado Tartan Day Council’s Highland Tea fundraiser will provide that delightful opportunity along with the other delicacies you’d expect at a proper tea. Today’s event is a benefit for the council’s…

Om the Level

The call-and-response nature of kirtan/chant music is designed to settle your mind into the same place of stillness achieved through meditation — but with less effort. That’s a good way to sum up everything you’ll find at the inaugural Denver Chant Fest. And chant is far from all that’s on…

Film on a Roll

The mission of the Boulder International Film Festival has always been simple: to screen films that won’t be showing at the cineplex downtown. “These are films that people might never see in Boulder,” says Kathy Beeck, who founded the festival in 2004 with her sister, Robin. “We go through a…

Cyber-Life

Michael Mitnick’s comedy Ed, Downloaded began its Denver life last winter as a dramatic reading for the Denver Center Theatre Company’s Colorado New Play Summit. Now it returns, as is often the case, as a full-blown production at the Ricketson Theatre. And if you like movies, this play — the…

After the Fall

We watched from the comfort of our undisturbed homes when Japan’s Tohoku coast was devastated in 2011 by a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami. But for author Gretel Ehrlich (This Cold Heaven, The Future of Ice and The Solace of Open Spaces), it wasn’t enough to commiserate from afar. Already…

Tempest in a Tape Deck

If you’re at all familiar with Buntport, you already know that its latest original work, Wake, will not really resemble its inspiration, Shake-speare’s The Tempest. Somehow, Buntport’s imaginative crew will find a unique way to deconstruct the story. “We’re calling it a ‘corruption of The Tempest,’” explains company member Brian…

Looking West

No matter how urbanized cities like Denver become, romantic images of tumbleweeds and telephone poles will always be attached to the American West. But the art coming out of our region has changed, and Gallery 1261 aims to highlight these new trends in Rethinking Western. The show features artists who…

Name That Artist

The Faux Show, at the Museum of Outdoor Arts, looks for the line between what is and is not art. “We thought we would explore the different ways the visual arts are exploited in pop culture,” says museum project manager Tim Vacca, adding that this is “an exhibition that doesn’t…

A Screening Good Time

This year’s Festivus Film Festival, the sixth annual celebration of indie flicks, isn’t saving its best for last. Rather, it will explode out of the gates with a first night that puts Colorado filmmakers firmly in the limelight. “We have block that’s all local shorts, and a feature film called…

The White Stuff

Denver will welcome the Snowsports Industries America (SIA) Snow Show for the third consecutive year this coming weekend, and while the trade show at the Colorado Convention Center is industry-only, promoters have surrounded it with a citywide celebration of hot events dedicated to the cold: Art of Winter. “SIA is…

Timeless Love

From Baz Luhrmann’s mid-’90s version with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes to a 2011 animated retelling with garden gnomes, Romeo and Juliet has been translated into many time periods and approaches over the years. And now the Denver Center Theatre Company is bringing William Shakespeare’s tragic tale of teenage love…

Photos: Mardi Gras Club Crawl plays with fire

Last night, Lotus Clubs celebrated Mardi Gras with a flame-friendly club crawl through Chloe, Oak Tavern and Suite Two Hundred. As you’ll notice from the scenes below, part of the club crawl featured actual crawling — though of the glamorous, variety, of course. Continue reading for highlights of the dancing,…

Active Junky leaves green in the pockets of its members

Active Junky’s rapid ascent of the retail mountain has changed the game for consumers and retailers alike. The outdoor gear cash-back aggregator shopping site drives traffic to its retail partners and gives rewards to its members, benefiting everyone on the outdoor gear and lifestyle shopping mountain. With more than 250…