Westword’s offices are closed today, but that doesn’t mean the city is shutting down. There are plenty of ways to relax this weekend in the calm between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Unwind with yoga, fire-breathing butterflies and have a couple chuckles. Drop us a comment if you know of…
Dogs and their humans gathered Tuesday night at Alpine Dog Brewing for beer and cheer and ugly sweater contests for all. The Yappy Hour event was a benefit for the Denver Dumb Friends League. All photos by Ken Hamblin III. Now see the full Denver Dumb Friends League Holiday Yappy Hour…
Denver-based pet-prosthetics specialists OrthoPets got a leg up this month, when the Small Business Revolution sponsored by Deluxe Corp. surprised the operation with a $25,000 check. A few of OrthoPets’ bionic puppy patients showed up at the dog-friendly Watering Bowl on December 2 for a surprise party that honored Martin Kauffman,…
Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin’s sweet nectarine of a jazz standard “Easy Living” figures, in a glancing yet potent way, in Todd Haynes’s Carol, adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt. Even though the lyrics speak of contentment — “Living for you is easy living/It’s easy to…
Here’s a challenge. Gather some friends, pour some drinks and announce to everyone the premise of Daddy’s Home, the new family comedy about dads competing to be pater superior. It won’t take long: Will Ferrell is a doting shlemiel of a stepdad to suburban moppets whose biological father, played by…
Part of a generation of modernists who emerged in northern New Mexico in the 1970s, Zachariah Rieke has been influenced by both abstract expressionism and Japanese calligraphy. A selection of his abstracts can be seen in Surface Tension, a group show at William Havu Gallery that combines paintings and sculpture…
National Ugly Sweater Day came a day late at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, where hundreds of the 303’s worst-dressed denizens donned garish winter-wear for the Denver Ugly Sweater Run last Saturday. Here’s what that looked like, if you can bear to take a peek. Photos by Ken Hamblin III, and…
On the bad days, Jim Stevens would curse and throw tools across his art studio, frustrated by his inability to create like he did before he lost his sight. He’d just come off a rough seven years: losing his vision, his wife, his job and his artistic ability in quick…
Joseph Koncilja is a longtime preservationist who’s working to save historic structures in Pueblo. His interest in the vintage built environment extends to neon signs, which he has been collecting for years. Because of a preservation ordinance in the southern Colorado town, neon signs aren’t allowed on buildings facing the…
In just over a week, 2015 will come to a close. That means it’s time for that most joyous of traditions — the year-end list! Everywhere you turn, lists of the best, the worst, the most and the least are springing up, informing you about all the cool shit that…
Here it is folks, a cinematic advent calendar of sorts for this holiday season. Our local repertory houses — the Sie FilmCenter and the Alamo Drafthouse, along with a handful of other movie houses — are about to go all H.A.M. for you and your Christmas spirit. So, we’ve gathered…
How good was 2015 for movies? My first draft of a top ten was a staggering top thirty. I had to make some agonizing cuts and punt by giving documentaries their own sidebar — this year, they’ve earned it. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: Watch every one…
Every year we endlessly debate the “meaning of Christmas.” Fox News stages its traditional “War on Christmas” show, commentators lament the crass commercialization, and decorations inch up in store stocks until they compete with pumpkins for space. And on Christmas Eve, families everywhere gather around a traditional nativity, with baby…
In a 1951 obituary for singer-comedian Fanny Brice, the New York Times mentions her parody of the famed “Dying Swan” ballet from Swan Lake and “her take-off of Camille with W. C. Fields as the maid,” and adds that Times critic Brooks Atkinson called her “a burlesque comic of the…
All through this year, it felt like 2015 had a lot of changes in store for Denver — some good, some not so good. Just a few weeks ago, Andre’s Confiserie Suisse announced it was closing at the end of December, meaning one more cherished institution is going the way…
Filmmaker Todd Haynes has been on the cutting edge of queer cinema for years, transporting viewers through a gay fantasia of unique periods, from Velvet Goldmine’s glam-rock glitter to Far From Heaven’s Technicolor-soaked yearnings, with plenty of dramatic time travel in between. Now, just in time for Christmas, comes Carol, an…
Concussion isn’t much of a movie, but it’s a fascinating bellwether for where the National Football League currently stands on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease associated with many of its former players. As it happens, the human brain isn’t supposed to whip against the skull like a…
Here’s to Quentin Tarantino’s cussed perversity. The Hateful Eight, his intimate, suspenseful Western splatter-horror comedy, has been shot at great expense in the long-gone 70mm format, but the movie itself is set almost entirely in cramped interiors. He’s hired Ennio Morricone to score the thing, but don’t expect any rousing…
It’s cold outside, but plans are heating up for Artopia 2016 on Saturday, February 20 — a night of art, culture and fashion at City Hall. And cocktails, of course, which you can enjoy as you move through seven rooms of art installations and exhibits, curated by Jolt from Guerilla…
Holiday drinks and Playboy cut-outs made for a festive time at the XXX-Mas Craft Fair, a risque co-ed ornament-crafting evening at MCA Denver on December 18. Photographer Danielle Lirette captured the all naughty masterpieces crafted with love, glue and a little T&A. Now see the full XXX-Mas Craft Fair slide…
It’s almost 2016, and you have no idea how you’re going to send off 2015. Here are ten options ranging from free to very, very fancy, custom-made to make your December 31 as mild or wild as you want it. 10) New Year’s Eve Extravaganza at Comedy Works Downtown and…
Chris Gethard is a hero to a certain mawkish cadre of alternative comedy fans. An Upright Citizens Brigade-hewn improviser, Gethard has branched out into writing, acting and standup, but has never wavered in his good-natured if unsettling commitment to absurdity at the core of the UCB ethos. The Chris Gethard…
