One of the Denver jazz scene’s favorite sons, saxophonist Fred Hess is in fine form on his new recording, Single Moment, with elegant backup from trumpeter Ron Miles Trumpet, reed genius John Gunther, guitarist Dale Bruning, bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Matt Wilson. But tonight, he’ll have an entire big…
In a sports-mad city like Denver, it’s easy to make friends — and enemies — at any sports bar: Just sit down and make a statement about the best, worst or most ridiculous coach, player or call to the guy next to you, and you’re off. Now Denver sports fans…
This Saturday, more than 100 do-gooder scooter enthusiasts will weave through the streets of Denver in support of the fifth annual Scoot for Toys ride, presented by Erico Motorsports and SQREAM Scooter Club; proceeds benefit the Ronald McDonald House, which provides temporary housing for families with hospitalized children. This year’s…
Get on the bus tonight — and bring the family! During Night at the Museums, nearly a dozen of the city’s museums will stay open from 5 to 10 p.m. and offer free ad-mission and special events in conjunction with Denver Arts Week. None of it will cost you a…
Movies? Check. Music? Check. Snow? Check. That tasty trio is at the heart of Copper Mountain ski resort’s fourth annual opening-weekend celebration, Lift Off. Tonight, after a hard day on the mountain, Copper presents a free Lift Off Movie Tour Pub Crawl, with films screened at various stops around town…
What happens when you take a group of inmates at an overcrowded, maximum-security Alabama prison and introduce them to meditation via a Vipassana retreat — in which they must sit in complete silence for ten days, breaking only for meals and sleep? A new documentary, The Dhamma Brothers, chronicles just…
Okay, fine — so times are tough. You’re couch-diving to scrape up enough change to fill your gas tank, you get chest pains every time you check your 401(k), and you’re scrimping and saving and pinching pennies till they beg for mercy. But that’s no reason to miss out on…
The Miracle Worker is the familiar story of Annie Sullivan’s attempt to teach Helen Keller how to communicate in her silent, dark world. However, a particularly interesting aspect of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s production is the set design. “The set design is very symbolic,” says media contact Chris Wiger…
Ingrid Michaelson has been caught up in a whirlwind of activity for almost almost two years since her song “Breakable” was used on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. The show then placed her endearing tune “The Way I Am,” which was also used in Old Navy’s fall commercial campaign. But…
In March 1978, I wrote a Westword piece about a group organizing “Ten Days in May,” the city’s first film festival, with a headline that asked, “Will It Work?” As answer, we have tonight’s opening of the 31st Starz Denver Film Festival, taking place at the Starz FilmCenter in the…
Laura Merage is an accomplished photo-based artist whose work I’ve reviewed a few times during the past decade. Her photos and photo-based pieces are supremely elegant and extremely sophisticated, as is she. More relevant to my story this week, however, is her other career, as a generous philanthropist with a…
When Sandy Carson, a fixture in Denver’s contemporary art world, announced earlier this year that she had sold her namesake gallery, even insiders were shocked. Carson has been on the scene since the beginning of time, which in Denver means the 1970s. The buyers were Bill and Jan van Straaten,…
Adam Helms. This solo in the MCA’s Paper Works Gallery is the New York artist’s first museum show anywhere. In his works on paper and in a monumental sculpture that conjures up a shooting blind, Helms explores political themes, especially armed struggle. He takes images of different radical and extremist…
Girls Only. The trouble with Girls Only, a two-woman evening of conversation, skits, singing, improvisation and audience participation, is that it’s so relentlessly nice. Creator-performers Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein have worked together for many years; at some point, they read their early diaries to each other and were transfixed…
We’re pretty spoiled here in the metro area when it comes to film and film festivals. That goes double for all you adrenaline junkies and nature lovers out there who live mere minutes from the Adventure Film Festival, a fest homegrown out of Boulder that showcases dozens of independent films…
If the dream of every comic is to have his humor live on long after he’s left the stage, then the late Bernie Mac has exited this world on a high note. Soul Men, a comedy completed shortly before Mac’s untimely death in August, is no classic, but the comedian,…
Movie cults are born, not made. A youthful audience discovered Donnie Darko on its own, even as another demographic transformed The Sound of Music into sing-along karaoke — to name two of the 21st century’s most notorious cult attractions. Still, no less than rocket science, show business relies on tested…
Playwright Neil LaBute is a king of nasty, but I’ve also always thought of him as tough-minded, daring and original. Now that I’ve seen Fat Pig, though, I’m wondering whether I’ve been fooled. Is it just that nastiness almost always strikes us as clever; that we tend to think the…
Paul Rudd wears a constant look of glazed-eye amusement; everything seems to tickle him, even that which annoys or frustrates or disappoints him. He’s frat-boy handsome and therefore almost anonymous when he stands in a movie-star lineup; in Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things (2003), Rudd received a supposedly extreme…
For anyone who observes a piece of art and wonders what it says, now you can truly listen. This Tuesday, art will speak at the University of Colorado at Boulder when the school’s Visiting Artist Series, one of the oldest lecture series in the nation, presents British native Clare Twomey…
I’ve always envied Henry Rollins for being unafraid to speak his mind; of course, it helps when you look as intimidating as he does. Outspoken and impassioned about topics ranging from pop culture to politics, the man probably has a lot to get off his chest in this pivotal year…
Not many 88-year-old women would decide to lean out the window of a small plane to take photos of the Rio Grande — but then again, not many women are like legendary Colorado photographer Laura Gilpin. You can’t talk about artists of the American Southwest without Gilpin’s name being dropped…
