Eight minutes into the pilot episode of Cinemax’s new crime show Quarry — an uneven but largely rewarding translation of Max Allan Collins’ crime books into emotionally challenging, character-driven television — Marine Lloyd “Mac” Conway, Jr. (Logan Marshall-Green) returns home a day early from his second tour in Vietnam. By…
Christian Carion’s refugees-on-the-march World War II drama Come What May is the kind of old-fashioned war movie that’s crafted not just to emphasize history’s horror and brutality. Yes, Carion stages the occasional slaughter with heartsick brio, and sometimes can’t resist taking pleasure when the violence goes against the bad guys,…
A decade after the fact, the scandal of JT LeRoy — the HIV-positive, young male (though gender-fluid) writer adored by scores of global alt celebrities who was revealed to be the creation of a woman named Laura Albert — is relitigated in Jeff Feuerzeig’s queasily absorbing documentary Author: The JT…
Where were you when you learned that you’d be making your DJ debut at the biggest rave of the year? And that said rave was only eight hours away? Ethan, the sheepish main character of Netflix’s straight-to-streaming EDM movie XOXO, gets the news in his kitchen, where his mom is cooking breakfast…
“Oh my God. Sorry. Gosh. I just can’t believe it actually happened.” This is an omniscient narrator speaking. Jane the Virgin’s Latin Lover Narrator (yes, that is how he is credited) has just witnessed the titular heroine tie the knot at the end of the CW show’s second season. Everything…
This is Labor Day weekend, which means there are three days of fun events ahead — many of them free. Our top ten picks include stuff for skaters, art for sludge stoners, swag for sneaker heads and something for everyone in between. For even more entertainment options, visit the Westword calendar….
Here it comes, the crisp chill of September, when shorts during the day give way to hoodies and pants at night. The air conditioning in your local movie house will be turned off, and a warm bucket of popcorn will keep your fingers toasty and buttery. In no time at…
#65: Theo “Lucifury” Wilson Theo Wilson is the ultimate Denver artivist. In his guise as Lucifury, he was a founding member of the Slam Nuba poetry slam, and his artistic reach includes everything from acting and songwriting to inspirational talks on the TEDx stage. More than a performer, Wilson is…
As summer draws to a close and the school year begins in earnest, workaday concerns crowd out the carefree vibe of summer. But you still need to get out and enjoy yourself, so we’ve assembled a list of ten shows that demonstrate the wide variety of comedic entertainments in town…
The Colorado State Fair, now under way through Labor Day in Pueblo, is full of many marvels: incredibly composed 4H kids showing their animals at yesterday’s Junior Livestock Sale (last year’s raised $534,650 for the youthful exhibitors); parading pigs; musical acts big and small; a display where visitors can milk…
Cities, like young people, are forever becoming something new. The latest tender charmer from Ira Sachs chronicles the growing pains of teens and Brooklyn with the wry sensitivity and eye for economic reality that distinguished Sachs’ Love Is Strange (2014) and Keep the Lights On (2012), which began a sort…
Ira Sachs has become one of our great American filmmakers. His newest, Little Men, about two teenage boys (Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri) who become best friends even as their parents face off over the fate of a small dress shop in the ground floor of a Brooklyn home, is…
The attempt to reconcile the personal with the political has been the great theme of Nanni Moretti’s cinema, as it was for many of the legendary Italian directors before him. In Mia Madre, it finds one of its more vivid examinations. The film’s concept is blunt — a director struggles…
Nepotism is occasionally a positive, and not just for the direct beneficiary. Ridley Scott gave us Alien, with heroine Ripley and a memorable cast of ne’er-do-wells and villains with defined personalities. And now Scott’s son, Luke, who’s been shadowing his dad on his last few big-budget films, has delivered unto…
Tension and release is the driving principle of a tearjerker, where every good fortune is countered by something worse. And as dismissive as critics often are of the genre, it’s actually quite difficult for a director to make people cry en masse and genuinely feel things. Derek Cianfrance’s foreboding melodrama…
I spend a lot of time watching dogs poop. I am the human to a wonderful, almost ten-pound Papillon freak show named Frankie who I often walk at night, so I’m extra-vigilant about where he poops — sometimes even using my phone flashlight to find said doo-doo in the grass so…
Over the summer, the Denver Art Museum has presented shows and events about dance — not something ordinarily associated with fine art, since dance’s defining characteristic is movement, and few fine-art forms move. The programming has all been inspired by Rhythm & Roots: Dance in American Art; mounted on level…
Whether you like your theater ribald, incredibly creative or made up on the spot, there’s something new for you on a stage in Denver this week. The curtain’s rising on a new season; sit yourself down at one of these three shows: The Money Shot Avenue Theater September 1 through…
Kayvan Khalatbari is a serial entrepreneur. He first landed on our radar with Sexy Pizza, a venture that helped found more ventures, including Sexpot Comedy, which in turn fed Denver’s growing comedy scene, and Denver Relief, one of Denver’s first dispensaries. This month he sold Denver Relief to Willie Nelson…
#66: Meagen Svendsen Ceramic artist, musician, mother, collaborator and traveler Meagen Svendsen swims creative seas like a natural. As an installationist, she builds worlds inspired by inquiries into natural science, and as the lead singer/songwriter of Avifauna, a band of local artists making moody and atmospheric music, she brings listeners…
Erik Storey, the Colorado author who scored a six-figure advance for his first thriller, Nothing Short of Dying, along with a sequel starring adventurer Clyde Barr, has been compared to mega-best-selling thriller writer Lee Child, creator of the Jack Reacher series. In fact, Child’s agent negotiated the deal for the book,…
The Edge Theater Company has never staged a musical during its six years, nor has Edge artistic director Rick Yaconis ever directed one — until now, when Edge is roaring into the new season with a scintillating pop-rock work called Murder Ballad. This isn’t a standard musical. The small-scale, sung-through…
