Nothing like a little smattering of nostalgia to soften up the critics, and J.J. Abrams lays it on thick in Super 8, his pitch-perfect paean to Steven Spielberg and growing up in the late ’70s and early ’80s. But sentiment doesn’t have to be a weak critical reaction, as Tim…
There’s an old adage to making a browser game — and fiction in general — one that we’ve talked about before: “Make it new.” A Flash game isn’t exactly the most powerful platform in the world, so you’re restricted to a certain style. But for every 100 platformers, there’s always…
When John Larson conceived of the Council of Awesome back around February, he envisioned it as a sort of network for people who want to do more than network – an experiment, you might say, for people who like to experiment. Like a college chemistry lab except totally way less…
Browsing through the reviews of Super 8, it seems like a lot of fans and critics are giving the film — a pastiche of late ’70s/early ’80s Spielberg — a soft critical pass based on their nostalgic reactions to the time period in which it’s set and their love of…
We sailed for parts unknown to man, where ships come home to die No lofty peak, nor fortress bold, could match our captain’s eye Upon the seventh seasick day we made our port of call A sand so white, and sea so blue, no mortal place at all -“A Salty…
It’s often been observed that golf is a game for people who hate themselves. The object of it is to hit a tiny ball into a tiny hole an absurd distance away, and the standards are defined in such a way that even professional players hardly exceed them — even…
With no announcement and little ceremony or sentiment, the Denver Daily News closed its doors forever yesterday after ten years of Monday-through-Friday reporting. For an upstart organization with an incredibly tiny staff (four in editorial and one photographer), the Daily got a lot done, and there’s a lot we’ll miss…
Neil Hamburger is an asshole. He’s the kind of comedian that was born unlikable; even though he’s funny sometimes, most of the time he’s just alienating. Plus, he’s gross to look at, and that says a lot about a person. But for the love-haters of Hamburger, there’s his Twitter, a…
Update: Yay! DEVO Tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. this morning! Get yours at the Denver County Fair website. It’s official: As previously reported here a few weeks ago, Barry Fey joined the Denver County Fair fold to help Dana Cain and Tracy Weil wrangle a high-profile act music…
It’s already starting to get too hot to think outside, which means the summer-time media is starting to fly onto the shelves to offer up some escapism for those of us that can’t handle the heat. Generally speaking, summer releases favor the blockbuster, the antithesis of a think piece –…
While most folks go to festivals like the Capitol Hill People’s Fair mostly for the bouncy-castle and the shirtless ambience, Bree Davies is partial to the finer points of festival vending, like hats for dogs and paintings of sheep in trench coats; in her recap of the fair yesterday, she…
When the guy who directed G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra sets out adapt a novel by Dean Koontz — pretty much the M. Night Syamalan of the literary world — there’s an excellent chance it will be awful. Nevertheless, there may be at least one bright spot for local…
Lift tickets, lesssons, lodging, and gear rentals for a posse rolling more than 20 deep? Duggar family parents Jim Bob and Michelle may not have had ponying up for family ski vacations on the brain while they were getting busy and getting down to business with the practical side of…
Bobbi Walker has pushed her gallery in a positive direction over the past few years, and Walker Fine Art is now a place to see noteworthy shows — something that wasn’t necessarily true five years ago. Part of Walker’s success is that she’s pulled in some important Colorado artists who…
15 Colorado Artists. The Kirkland Museum is presenting a historical show that tracks the beginnings of post-war modernism in Denver using the artist group 15 Colorado Artists as an index. The story goes that the Denver Artists Guild was hostile to modernism at the time. This led to a split,…
Cats. There’s not much of a plot to Cats. You meet the Jellicles, with their cheerful faces and bright black eyes, who dance “under the light of the Jellicle moon”; the Ming-vase-smashing cat burglars, Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer; fat, elegant, gentleman’s club-haunting Bustopher Jones; and contrary-minded Rum Tum Tugger. The show’s…
L’amour Fou opens with unbroken footage from designer Yves Saint-Laurent’s 2002 speech announcing his retirement from fashion after forty-plus years at the helm of the massively important label bearing his name. It’s a stunning performance, flowing from naked confessional (“I have known the false friends of tranquilizers…and emerged dazzled but…
A big-bang demolition derby, J.J. Abrams’s much-anticipated, greatly enjoyable Super 8 seems bound for box-office glory. Opening three weeks before July 4th, this Steven Spielberg-produced, kid-centric 21st-century disaster flick could well hang in at theaters till the tenth anniversary of 9/11 — an event that haunts Super 8 nearly as…
At the start of Grey Gardens, we’re in Noel Coward territory. The setting is an opulent East Hampton mansion, and everyone is elegant, well-spoken, witty and beautifully dressed. This is the home of Edith Bouvier Beale, her ever-absent husband and her father, J.V. “Major” Bouvier, whose wealth keeps the family…
Now that the Buntport Theater Company is winding up its tenth season — filled with remounts of several past shows — it’s time to stop thinking of this troupe as talented kids who got together at Colorado College to create a theater style all their own, and instead consider them…
Including glimpses of Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin, the rings of Saturn and a roadside Texas BBQ, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life bears forth a variety of forms — and invites as many reactions. You may feel amazed or muddled, softly spoken to or simply abandoned while watching…
The gods were smiling on Saturday night, when the food trucks lined up on Larimer Street and Tran and Josh Wills rolled up their Super Ordinary Gallery’s garage door on Microclimates, a finished Kickstarter project by Samuel Schimek and Rob Mack that comprises three environments based on their combined graphic…
