Boulder’s Backflip Studios is changing the game

Americans are accustomed to paying for our entertainment by purchasing something, and then enjoying that product later. There are exceptions, of course, like broadcast television, which is free but supported by ads. We don’t usually associate this model with games, but Backflip Studios in Boulder is changing that with its…

Reader: Gimme more Gimme Gimme Pillow Toast

We know what side our bread is buttered on. Gimme Gimme Pillow toast is returning to Mod Livin’ this month, and its fans are pretty sure the organizers — including Andrew Novick, shown above — know how to cure what ails them…

The gold rush: A walk through the woods of Boulder in autumn

You’ll never look at an urban tree in quite the same way after you’ve been on the Fall Tree Walk offered annually on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus by the CU Museum of Natural History. That ‘s because it’s leaf-peeping with a purpose, a serene evening stroll led…

Artbeat: Ended friendships and abstract brushworks at Edge Gallery

The recent work of a pair of longtime members of Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173, http://edgeart.org) is on view in the co-op’s front and middle spaces through this weekend. Both artists are abstract painters. In the front is Mark Brasuell: The Second Chance, made up of acrylic and mixed-medium…

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Bonny Lhotka & Norman Epp. This duet, the full title of which is Horizons: Bonny Lhotka & Norman Epp, brings together the internationally known Boulder-based digital artist with an up-and-coming Denver sculptor. Though to a great extent their individual bodies of works have decidedly different aims — Lhotka is technically…

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Clybourne Park. Racism persists, but the ways in which we feel and express racism change with the times. Bruce Norris’s brilliant Clybourne Park was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, at the end of which the Youngers, a struggling black family, are about to move into a…

Love Crime is a silly tale of boardroom humiliation

“Want it…and watch out,” ruthless corporate veep Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) instructs younger associate Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) in Love Crime, a silly tale of boardroom humiliation. The final film from Alain Corneau, who died last year and is best known for 1991’s All the Mornings of the World, Love Crime…

Spare-parts melodrama Real Steel is almost human

Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a two-bit trainer traveling the state-fair circuit in a not-too-distant future. His line is robot fighting, a sport that has absorbed the audience for boxing, MMA and, apparently, demolition derby. After a tough match leaves Charlie ‘bot-less, he gets news that his ex-girlfriend, with whom…

The Ides of March is haunted by the crash of Obamamania

A procedural on the political manipulation of medium and message, George Clooney’s fourth directorial effort is bookended with scenes of media-op prepping. In the first, Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), a thirty-year-old campaign advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Mike Morris (Clooney), fills in for his boss at the sound check for…

A gang of cartoon characters landed these students in trouble

Have you seen those YouTubes of twin babies talking to each other, and it doesn’t make any sense but they’re communicating?” Corey Knapper asks. He and his brother, Jesse, are like that. At 24, they still have a secret language of gasps and glances, as well as a secret gang…

Get your leaf-peep on with these photos from Aspen Mountain

At the height of fall in Colorado, as the leaves mature from sun blazed umbrellas into a landscaped rug, Colorado experiences a glowing transformation. Aspen Mountain, in particular bursts with an electric glaze, one that was too bright to ignore over the weekend when I was in Aspen to cover…

Pugs in the Park was disgusting

Before you could see them, you could hear it: that wet, phlegmy sound of air sucked into fatty passages made too tight through centuries of inbreeding. Of all the dog breeds, pugs are, bar none, the most grotesque, with their weird, punched-in ewok-looking faces and their constant breathing difficulty (which…

In Colorado, it’s boarding season all year long

We’ve been getting ahead of ourselves with all the recent snowboard video premieres going down — and opening day still at least a month away at most Colorado resorts — but some of our favorite local film crews have been reminding us of an important fact: It’s still skateboarding season…