The Reader

Like Doubt, Stephen Daldry’s The Reader is low-budget, high-profile and beamed straight at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Category of High Moral Tone. Only in this case, the stakes are way higher and the attitude muted to a fault. Based on a partly autobiographical novel by Bernhard…

Valkyrie

Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg — a lot of name for a lot of guy. Born into aristocracy in 1907, he was a soldier by the age of nineteen — and, by most accounts, a warrior with the soul of a poet (he was especially smitten with the…

Valkyrie’s star and director, Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer

It’s July 20, 1944, and Adolf Hitler has been assassinated — the victim of a bomb blast organized and executed by a cabal of high-ranking German army officers seeking to wrest control of the country away from the Third Reich and, with luck, bring an end to World War II…

Play That Funky Music

These days, children of the ’80s are the 18-to-28-year-old demographic, which means that when a venue hosts an ’80s night, it hits the spot — especially when you’re asked to dress the part. Tonight, the Walnut Room, 3131 Walnut Street, hosts just such an event: Bringing Back the ’80s, featuring…

Disco Biscuit

Congratulations! As of today, you’ve successfully survived the hardest part of the holiday season. The shopping is done, the gifts are given, and the big dinners are over. Now you’re stuck at home, wondering how you can escape your family and wishing it was New Year’s Eve already. Tonight you…

A Very Scantily Clad Holiday

Turkey, family and Guitar Hero — although maybe not in that order — are the things I’ll miss most about not going home for Christmas. (Yes, after-dinner Guitar Hero is a recently added holiday tradition in my family.) I’m sure like-minded transplants who can’t afford plane fare have their own…

Game On

Today’s Buck the Chargers fundraiser is a fun afternoon full of beer, food and football at the Irish Rover Pub, 54 South Broadway. A portion of every ticket sold will go to Denver’s elite wheelchair rugby team, the Harlequins. Yeah, you heard right: wheelchair rugby. Just by smashing — and,…

A Very Butoh Christmas

Looking for a bit of holiday culture, minus the Sugar Plum Fairies? Try a Christmas play with a Butoh-licious twist — no ifs, ands or nuts: Syzygy Butoh and Maureen Freehill present A Butoh Christmas Pageant tonight at the Wesley Chapel, 1290 Folsom Street in Boulder. Choreographer Nathan Montgomery explains…

Sing for Your Dinner

Believe it or not, some people don’t celebrate Christmas. Paging Bill O’Reilly: The War on Christmas is upon us! Well, it’s either that, or there are people in this coun-try who practice a different religion. Go figure. Tonight’s HANU-Karaoke & Latke Dinner follows a Hanukkah/Shabbat service at Temple Micah, 2600…

You Beta, You Beta, You Bet

Here’s the scene: It’s getting late on Christmas night, the orgy of gift-giving was over hours ago, and you’ve eaten enough to hibernate through the winter. Grandpa’s head is beginning to bob, the board games are coming out — and you’re all out of spiked ’nog. Now is the time…

Wish Upon a (Porn) Star

We all know rocks stars can party, but that’s nothing compared to partying like a porn star. Tonight, more than a dozen of Colorado’s top adult-film stars will be pursuing ultimate decadence at Wish Nightclub’s Party Like a Porn Star. Wish (511 West Colfax Avenue) has partnered with Shotgun Willie’s…

Train Gang

In all the brooding and debating over I-70 ski traffic and how to fix it or give people a way out of it — with a train — one little detail is usually missing: Denver al-ready has a Ski Train. Its 69th season providing stress-free trips to Winter Park and…

Run for It

Sure, you could always wait till tomorrow to start your New Year’s resolutions — but who wants to take up jogging while nursing a vicious hangover? Here’s a better plan: Head to Crested Butte for the second annual Frozen Buns 5K Resolution Fun Run and get a jump start on…

Night at the Improv

That spark of spontaneous creativity that some people can evoke is wonderful to witness, and at tonight’s performance of the Gypsy Cab Co., you’ll get a chance to watch nearly a dozen local performers ham it up on stage in two long-form improvised performances. “We call it Gypsy Cab because…

Humanist Principles

Today is the first day of Kwanzaa, the seven-day celebration of the humanist principles of Nguzo Saba. Each day is thematic and replete with Afrocentric spoken word, craftmaking, music, dance, games and the pouring of libations. Celebrations for Umoja (Unity) day commence at 1 p.m. at the Blair-Caldwell African-American Research…

All I Want for Christmas

Dear Santa: This year I’d really, really, REALLY like some belly dancers, strip teasers, magicians and a comedian. P.S.: Can you also include a midget? Believe it or not, I’ve sent this letter to the North Pole for the last fifteen or so years, and Santa has never delivered. Sure,…

Art Imitates Art

Everyone wonders how fine artists find inspiration and become influenced through other mediums, which is why the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Open Shelf Films program is so freakin’ brilliant. “Each artist gets a shelf, and they fill it with sources and inspirations of their work — whether that’s something…

Lost in Space

It’s sad but true: All good things must come to an end. And that includes Buntport Theater’s innovative (and hilarious) live sitcoms. The company started experimenting with Magnets on the Fridge in 2001; its current live sitcom, Starship Troy, follows a crew aboard a flying garbage truck — in space…

Her Name Was Lola

The real Lola Montes was one of the wildest characters of the nineteenth century, a dancer, actress and courtesan who was romantically involved with both Franz Liszt and the Bavarian king Ludwig I, who made her a countess. Fittingly, she was memorialized in the 1955 film Lola Montes, by Max…

Hot Buttered (Green) Rum

When you’re listening to music, you don’t want to leave too much of a carbon footprint. In fact, you want to be sure that the only emissions emanating from the stage are the by-products of flyin’ fiddles and bangin’ banjos — am I right? So rest assured that when we…

Beer Up

“For too many people,” says Marty Jones, organizer of Wynkoop Brewing Company’s thirteenth annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest, “the term ‘beer drinker’ conjures up a man in underwear and an ill-fitting T-shirt watching professional wrestling and drinking flavorless beer. But that is not the crowd we see.” Jones’s crowd?…

Bring On the Future

New Year’s Eve means the future is almost here, and to welcome that sci-fi time yet to come, FM magazine and Automatica Media are bringing The Future Party to the hi-dive and Sputnik tonight. “The future is our theme,” explains FM’s Tuyet Nguyen. “I suppose it sort of plays into…