Sing Out

Celebrate personal freedom at “Banned: A Celebration of the First Amendment,” a performance by the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus. “We seem to be at a place in history where the First Amendment is somewhat under assault,” says DGMC artistic director Sue Coffee. “This is a really good topic for a…

Now Showing

Don Stinson, Chuck Forsman and Eric Paddock/Jim Colbert. The Western landscape’s natural beauty has taken hold of the imagination of generations of artists, but during the last twenty years, some have chosen to examine the stickier topic of civilization’s affect on the scenery. This intellectual approach is the collective theme…

Encore

Art. Art begins and ends with an all-white painting — or an empty canvas, depending on how you look at it. Serge, a wealthy dermatologist, has just invested 200,000 francs (about $40,000) in this painting, which features diagonal white lines on a white background. His friend, Marc, is appalled at…

No More Wussies

Tom Hanks is who Tom Hanks is today because of something he did about 14 years ago. One afternoon, Hanks walked into his agent’s office and told the man who takes 10 percent, “I don’t want to play pussies anymore.” He had spent the better part of the 1980s being…

Southern Discomfort

The Ladykillers is the second film in as many years made by Joel and Ethan Coen to fill space between pet projects that seem to run off the leash; it’s a time-killer, if you will. But even their recent paychecks reflect the brothers’ restlessness: Their movies have grown more manic…

Hamer Time

The appeal of a quirky little Norwegian film called Kitchen Stories arises from the unlikeliest of sources: a series of domestic studies conducted back in the early 1950s by a group of Swedish efficiency experts. The mission of the Home Research Institute, as far as anyone could tell, was to…

Flick Pick

The re-release of Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers couldn’t come at a more crucial time. Shot in stark black and white and employing a pseudo-documentary style that was widely imitated, this political classic from 1966 is a startlingly intimate portrait of Algerian nationalists who, from 1954 to 1962, sought…

Get Your Burn On

If you’ve always longed to experience the Burning Man Festival but don’t have the funds or the gumption to travel into Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, you can get a feel for the experimental-arts celebration this summer at the Apogaea in Dreamtime, Colorado’s first regional Burning Man event. This weekend, the…

This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, March 25 Migrant farm workers didn’t just fade away with the ’70s. They continue to labor in American fields, still facing many of the same issues they did back then, including discrimination, low pay, and poor working and living conditions. The powerful images in The Migrant Project: Contemporary California…

On Broad-Way

Things can get wild on Market Street, where sports bars, music clubs and taverns teem with rowdy life on weekends. But if the walls of many of the street’s historic red-brick buildings could speak, they might say something like: You ain’t seen nothin’, kid. At the close of the nineteenth…

Talking Shop

Shopping at the light and airy Room is like visiting the loft of your most stylish friend: You wish everything could be magically transported to your own home. “This furniture really strikes a chord,” says owner Merlin Parker, who opened Room two months ago. “Everybody who comes in here seems…

Home Turf

SAT, 3/27 Things have gone considerably better for John Elway’s Arena Football League team in its second year. Heading into tonight’s 7 p.m. head-butt with the Indiana Firebirds, the Colorado Crush has already won the season’s three home games. That’s quite a turnaround from last year, when the Crush managed…

Art Reach

FRI, 3/26 Art as Action, a local grassroots movement of artists bringing people together to create social change, will debut its second original collaborative arts performance, Citizen of the Earth, tonight at Boulder’s Dairy Center for the Arts. “In this show, we wanted to express the idea that too often…

Roadhouse Rockin’

SAT, 3/27 There’s a dusty crease where the wide-open range of the Western Slope meets urban sprawl, where cow-tipping is almost a spectator sport, where boot-scootin’ cattle ranchers power-lunch with city slickers. The place is Loveland, Colorado. The Sweetheart City is also the home to the state’s only alternative-country-music label,…

Best New Bar

The High Street Speakeasy sits in a turn-of-the-century building that, way back in the day, served as a rooming house for transient Denverites. When it opened last spring, the place buzzed with rumors that spirits roamed the upstairs apartments and sometimes came down to the bar — for a cocktail,…

Best Old-Time Bar

Our mother always told us to respect our elders. So we’re giving mad props to the 57-year-old Don’s Club Tavern, a smoky dive bar that welcomes everyone with open arms — from the regulars who plant themselves daily on Don’s bar stools to the college kids in search of a…

Best Reincarnation

Regulars at the Skylark Lounge know what a difference a couple of blocks can make: not much. The stalwart watering hole moved this past November from its sixty-year home at 58 South Broadway to roomier digs at 140 South, but the revered smoky atmosphere was carefully transferred, along with the…

Best Club Comeback

Brendan’s, the patron saint of the blues, is back, baby. But it’s hard to feel the spirit of the downtrodden in such a beautiful club. Fine woodworking infuses the venue with warmth, and the view is sharp from any angle. There’s a steady lineup of quality acts, the sound is…

Best Dance Club for Hooking Up

If the slogan “Where the lonely get laid” or the phallic connotations of the Roosters name aren’t enough to entice Mootown’s lonesome losers to head north in search of a little hello kitty action, then a semi full of Viagra isn’t likely to help, either. Maybe it’s the pervasive pheromone…

Best Dance Club for Seeing A-List DJs

Denver’s infamous cathedral-turned-disco has been getting national props left and right as one of the nation’s most sacred temples. And we couldn’t agree more: From divine acts like Deep Dish to Paul Van Dyk, Seb Fontaine to Carl Cox and DJ Irene to DJ Rap, the Church’s elders consistently offer…

Best Dance Club for Dancing

Several new high-quality dance venues have opened in the Denver metro area in recent months, but with the best PLUR vibe and sound system, top-shelf DJ talent and lower covers and drink prices, Avalon gets our nod as the first-place finisher. Sure, it’s a long way from LoDo to Lone…

Best Dance Club for Seeing — and Being Seen

Rise is the perfect place to spot the bold and the beautiful — or to pretend to be bold and beautiful yourself. Since this bold and beautiful club opened last summer, a slew of movers and shakers have been eyeballed chilling on the patio’s preformed plastic couches, shaking it like…