The Denver Police Crime Laboratory offers engaging new art

During the twentieth century, one new public building was constructed in the greater Civic Center area for each decade. But it’s been a very different story in the current century: By my count, eight new landmarks have been built in the mere twelve years since 2000. Some, like History Colorado,…

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Clyfford Still. For the opening of the Clyfford Still Museum, director Dean Sobel has installed a career survey of the great artist that starts with the artist’s realist self-portrait and features his remarkable post-impressionist works from the 1920s. Next are Still’s works from the ’30s, with some odd takes on…

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Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The story of our seventh president set to propulsive emo-rock, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson could be the bastard child of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Spring Awakening, complete with torn-from-the-gut songs, black humor and lots of violence, suffering and blood. History is presented farcically —…

The House I Live In blends explosive statements and soft scenes

The winner of the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance, Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In, an occasionally muddled disquisition on the colossal failure of the War on Drugs, rehashes much that will be familiar to even the most casual reader of newspapers: that this “war” is waged…

Cloud Atlas Takes Off

It’s a Sunday afternoon in New York, and Tom Tykwer and the filmmakers formerly known as the Wachowski Brothers are talking about Zardoz, that odd and ambitious 1974 science-fiction drama most infamous for featuring a gun-vomiting godhead and Sean Connery in a mankini. As a film that confronts viewers from…

Wachowski World

At around the four-minute mark of my first viewing of the Cloud Atlas trailer, as the M83 track swelled to its bursting point and a hoverbike darted through future-Korea, I remember e-mailing and GChatting at least a dozen friends with a link to the preview and my take: “Holy Shit.”…

Diana Vreeland might have loved words as much as she loved fashion

Raconteuse, epigrammatist, mythomaniac and peerless fashion editor Diana Vreeland (1903-89) might have loved words as much as she loved Balenciaga. As Harold Koda of the Met’s Costume Institute, for which Vreeland served as a special consultant from 1973 until her death, memorably says in this often charming non-fiction bauble, “I…

For the Birds

The best way to get through a bad movie is by making good jokes at its expense. But to get through something that is legendarily bad, you’ll need professional help. Luckily, that’s exactly what you get with RiffTrax Live: Birdemic. The professionals are Kevin Murphy, Michael J. Nelson and Bill…

Eat Your Oatmeal

Matthew Inman certainly has his own view of the world, and he shares it through the comics he draws and the quizzes he produces for his website, TheOatmeal.com. And people seem to appreciate that view. Last year, Inman drew a crowd of almost 300 people to the Tattered Cover for…

Bustin’ Loose

By the time he turned 36, Damien Echols had spent half his life on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. How he managed to sustain hope and sanity in the bowels of a supermax prison is just part of the story found in Life After Death (Blue Rider…

Drawing Out the Dead

The Navajo Street Art District has been putting on Día de Los Muertos-inspired gatherings for more than two decades, and this year, it will feature an innovative addition: Galleries along the strip – including Zip 37, NEXT and Pirate – will invite revelers to create their own pieces of trading-card…

No Bones About It

El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is all about honoring the memories of deceased loved ones by celebrating their lives, and for the past twelve years, the Longmont Museum and Cultural Center has been furthering this tradition, holding events during which the community can learn about…

Have a Costumed Ball

Today’s fifth annual Highland Haunt, in the Potter Highlands neighborhood, is more sweet than spooky, since it’s primarily for kids. The shops along 32nd Avenue between Clay and Zuni streets (which will be closed to traffic) will open their doors from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for little trick-or-treaters, while…

Parties and Seances and Burlesque — Oh, My!

There are really two Halloweens: one for kids and one for adults, who love dressing up, too. And for the grownups, it’s a good time to let down your hair (and your fangs) and play-act for one wild, seasonal debauch. Here are a few places to have adult fun over…

The Scale Trail

Reptile lovers, rejoice: Everything that skitters, slinks or slithers will be found under one roof today at Repticon. Lizards, snakes, turtles and an assortment of non-reptilian creepy-crawlies will be on display, and all the gear you’ll need to make them at home in your home will be available for purchase…

Hot Times

In the late ’70s, Molly Ivins became the Rocky Mountain Bureau chief for The New York Times, but the writer was Texas through and through, and she returned to that state in 1982 to become a columnist. And she remained a columnist — an incredibly wry, insightful, hilarious columnist —…

The Beautiful and the Profane

El Diablo’s Día de los Muertos Celebration and Tattoo Artist Skull Show actually got its start four years ago at Jesse Morreale’s defunct Cherry Creek eatery, Tambien. But it was in the next year, when it was reincarnated at the newly opened El Diablo, that it really took off. And…