American Idol

For nearly fifteen years, Steve Friesen has lived and breathed the lore of Buffalo Bill (aka William F. Cody) as director of Lookout Mountain landmark the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave. And he’s proud of the collection of artifacts he’s so lovingly curated during that time, so much so that…

City Limits

The newest installment in the tale of Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City 2, has hit the big screen, bringing back old flames and calling into question her commitment to Mr. Big. Of course you have to see what happens, along with twelve of your closest girlfriends! To that end,…

War Is Hell

When it comes to you-are-there reporting, Sebastian Junger is top of the heap: The best-selling and award-winning author of The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont knows how to weave a yarn around straight facts with gripping and thought-provoking results, regardless of the subject. Junger’s new book, War, an…

Get Wild With These Demons

But the DIY artist and his teammates may have topped themselves with OFM’s latest production, Demons in the Sky! “We’ve brought together a fantastic band and fantastic fight choreography,” says Crosier of Demons, which premieres tonight at the Oriental Theater. “We’ve expanded the performance with added projections, aerial acrobatics for…

Rock On

What could be better in the middle of a holiday weekend than four stages of music, twenty bands, interactive booths, a gaming area and a beer garden? And all for free? This year’s Denver Day of Rock, a music festival designed to draw attention to the good work of local…

Loop the Loop

The Morgul-Bismarck Loop in Boulder County first gained fame in the 1970s and ’80s as a treacherous leg of the Red Zinger and Coors Classic bicycle circuit races famous for the notorious “Wall,” a culminating incline with a 12 percent grade. In those days, it mostly wound around the undeveloped…

Now Showing

Colorado & the West. This is the tenth summer in a row that David Cook Fine Art, the state’s premier purveyor of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century material, has presented a group show dedicated to historic Western art. This year’s version is anchored by more than two dozen oil paintings and watercolors…

Now Playing

Mouse in a Jar. George Orwell once said, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever,” and that pretty much captures the tone of Mouse in a Jar, an unrelenting chronicle of violence and suffering. Orwell was talking about totalitarianism,…

The Good, the Bad, the Weird shoots itself in the foot

The latest from popular Korean director Kim Ji-woon lands with a splat in the camp of decadent American blockbusters. Dubbed an “oriental Western” but really a travesty of Sergio Leone’s control of space, pacing and storytelling, The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a sloppy 130-minute scramble for treasure in…

Liberal guilt’s got soul in Please Give

Nicole Holofcener’s fourth feature, Please Give, is a notable rebound from the insufficiently examined self-absorption of her last, Friends With Money. Please Give is not quite Lovely & Amazing — Holofcener’s mordant, quasi-autobiographical “three sisters” spin — but it is, for the most part, witty and engrossing. Kate (Catherine Keener)…

Up doesn’t really fly at Curious

The legend of the man on the flying lawn chair sounds like an urban myth, but it just happens to be true. In 1982, an ordinary working guy named Larry Walters, obsessed with fantasies of flight, tied helium balloons to a lawn chair, equipped himself with filled water bottles for…

Coming Full Circle

Golden-based sculptor and installation artist Carley Warren has been a fixture on the Colorado art scene for decades. Along the way, she’s developed a unique signature style that refers to nature and human relationships — not through representational work, but by conveying the ideas conceptually, using simple forms carried out…

The Unkindest Cut

Female circumcision is completely alien to most Americans, but it’s a widespread custom in many places around the world — and a custom that’s become extremely controversial as a growing number of organizations label it a human-rights violation. “Most of us living in Colorado know relatively little about the practice…

Lost Horizons

If you can explain the significance of the numbers 4-8-15-16-23-42, have a theory about how polar bears got to a tropical island or have remodeled your living room to look like “The Hatch,” the opportunity of a lifetime has arrived. No, it’s not a position with the Dharma Initiative: It’s…

Weird Science

Bigfoot. Cattle mutilations. Ghosts. UFOs. Experience the weirder, wilder and often overlooked corners of scientific inquiry today at the Mad Science Fair. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the Metro State Crypto Science Society will turn the Tivoli Turnhalle on the Auraria campus into what founder Jason Cordova calls an…

Race for the Border

The 2,711-mile Tour Divide mountain-bike race from Banff, Canada, to the Mexican border is a feat that fewer than forty cyclists have ever completed. Without the support systems, teams and sponsors that make its French-speaking cousin even marginally realistic, the Tour Divide is (by most people’s estimations) simply insane. And…

Flick Pick

The latest from popular Korean director Kim Ji-woon lands with a splat in the camp of decadent American blockbusters. Dubbed an “oriental Western” but really a travesty of Sergio Leone’s control of space, pacing and storytelling, The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a sloppy 130-minute scramble for treasure in…

Trash Talking

One of the most interesting trips I ever took was a visit to Provincetown in the dead of a winter so cold that ice floated in the peninsular surf. It’s pretty much a ghost town in the winter, except for the locals — Portuguese fishermen, stray cats and brave housesitters…

Life of the Party

Like any good dance teacher, April Charmaine of the Sol Vida Dance! studio loves to show off her young students at the end of a year of training. But the question this time around was how? “I felt uninspired by the idea of a cookie-cutter recital,” Charmaine says. “I wanted…

The Whole World’s Watching

Ever seen a movie made in Armenia? How about one from Mozambique? Or Burkina Faso? Starting tonight and continuing through next Wednesday, the Denver Film Society will present the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, featuring documentaries from all three of those countries as well as many others. For less…