Beaver Creek Resort Is Open: Here’s What’s New in 2015

Beaver Creek Resort opened up on Wednesday with more than 720 acres of terrain — “the most terrain offered on opening day since 2002,” the resort says. “Season to date, the resort has already received more than 50 inches of natural snowfall and has benefited from ideal snowmaking conditions in…

Ten Places to Shop Local Saturday in Metro Denver

After a day of chowing down on plate after plate of stuffing and chugging Riunite by the jug, Black Friday shouldn’t be anyone’s priority. This year, just nurse your hangover today so that you’re in fine form to shop local on Small Business Saturday. Metro Denver is full of independent…

Seven Ways to Avoid Black Friday — and a Mall — in Denver

Outdoor co-operative and national retailer REI is hanging up the “gone fishin’” sign on all of its stores on Black Friday and encouraging its employees to go take a hike instead — on the payroll. Take this as a sign to customers everywhere that it’s okay to kick back on…

You Owe Me a Coke: This Holiday Season, Think of Your Non-Drinkers

In this legal weed-happy city, the evolving traditions of neo-Denver continually reveal themselves — especially during the holidays. Last year, for instance, I found myself at a marijuana-sponsored New Year’s Eve party, where nicely rolled joints sat on tables next to oversize mason jars packed with THC-infused truffles, which were…

Telluride Ski Resort Opens Today: Here’s What’s New in 2015

Telluride Ski Resort officially opens today, Thanksgiving, at 9 a.m. with the Village Express, Polar Queen Express and Apex lifts all running. “See Forever and the 4,5,6 Loop will remain closed while snowmaking operations continue, so all skiers and riders will need to exit Lift 6 and Lift 5 via…

Art Review: Mark Brasuell and Homare Ikeda Set the Pace in Denver

Denver’s vibrant art culture has started to generate national attention, even getting mentioned as one of the town’s key attributes on all of those “best city” lists on the Internet. Although the Mile High City still has a ways to go in comparison to international art centers, it is nonetheless…

Photos: Leapin’ Lederhosen! The Christkindl Market Is Open for Business!

Over the weekend, the annual Christkindl Market moved into Skyline Park for another Christmas season, bringing with it old-world European pastries and artisan breads, stunning panels of German lace, authentic German biersteins, wooden candle pyramids, hand-carved Russian Santa dolls, mulled wine in a heated tent and beer, of course, along…

Five Worst Things About Working Holiday Retail

Some customers can be unabashed thieves of holiday joy. There are few things that promote grotesque pain and suffering more than working a retail gig from November to January, and for those who do these customer service-oriented jobs there should be hazard pay, hazmat suits, and free liquor and weed…

Five New Holiday Shows Kick Off the Christmas Season in Denver

Like it or not, the holidays truly arrive the day after Thanksgiving, along with a spate of Christmas plays. That means venues are bringing back traditions old (the DCPA Theatre Company’s A Christmas Carol opens November 27 in the Stage Theatre) and newer (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company is bringing its…

Review: Faith Is a Thought-Provoking Work in Progress

Simon is thirteen years old — that confusing in-between time when most of as are struggling to find our own identities and our imaginations are at their most fluid, expansive and fantastical — and he’s a religious obsessive. He isn’t filled with love or wonder, he has no sense of…

Eldora Mountain Resort Is Open: Here’s What’s New for 2015

Eldora Mountain Resort opened last Friday in the middle of a nice little snowstorm, which had residents of Boulder and Denver rejoicing, especially since going to Eldora means not having to negotiate I-70. The Cannonball/Challenge, Caribou, EZ, Indian Peaks, Little Hawk, Sundance and Sunkid lifts are all operating. More will open in the coming weeks. You can…

Tom Hardy Doubles Down in Legend

The big breakthrough in Legend, the latest well-crafted studio throwback from writer-director Brian Helgeland? Here, at long last, is a movie with two often incomprehensible Tom Hardy characters, sometimes muttering their Cockney curses at each other inside the same scene. Hardy plays twins, real-life gangsters who ruled London’s East End…

Stallone Passes the Gloves to a Rising Talent in Creed

The heads of the City Dionysia, the Grecian playwriting competition that pitted Aeschylus against Sophocles and can be considered the original Oscars, had a rule: no original characters. Instead, the best creative minds of a generation — or, really, a millennium — exhausted themselves finding new spins on, say, Medea…

Pixar’s Latest Has Good Ideas but the World’s Oldest Story

Maybe Cars and the Hot Wheels-ification of Pixar has been a good thing. Now that the storied studio has, like its rivals, puked onto our screens indifferent kid-distracting junk, its new movies come un-freighted with expectations of genius. Miserable as it was, Planes: Fire and Rescue (from corporate parent Disney…

Vail Ski Resort Opens: Here’s What’s New for 2015

Recent snow storms brought more than a foot of snow to Vail last week, which meant that opening day on Friday, November 20, was a powder day. Nice way to start the season. Vail kicked things off with 1,150 acres of open terrain, and celebrated the new six-passenger Avanti Express…