The breadth of director Shaul Schwarz’s documentary Narco Cultura is staggering. A hybrid of hard investigative journalism and incisive cultural criticism, the film, at its core, is about definitions of success and power, and how today those terms are shaped by the shared forces of poverty and celebrity culture. Schwarz…
This is it: Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good-Bye is the last show at Heritage Square Music Hall — a strange venue that’s half true Western-style building, half pure Disney-level kitsch. If you’re already a fan of the 25-year-old troupe, catch this show immediately. And if you’re…
Among the offerings at Walker Fine Art is the standout Sabin Aell: Mond:See, a solo outing in the gallery’s main room. The show starts with a bang courtesy of the striking title piece, “Mond:See” (pictured), a mural that starts in the entry, then climbs the north wall and bleeds onto…
Catalyst. The beautiful grounds of the Denver Botanic Gardens are the ideal place to mount an outdoor sculpture show, and over the past few years, there has been one such presentation after another. This year, the theme is contemporary sculptors in Colorado. The pieces are picturesquely sited throughout in clearings…
Jackie and Me. Jackie and Me, Steven Dietz’s dramatization of a young-adult book by Dan Gutman, is a kids’ show, and also a remarkably flat and didactic one. It tells the story of a baseball-crazed boy named Joey Stoshak, who, with the help of a magical baseball card, goes back…
Fifteen years ago (December 4, 1998) an unusual movie was released…and roundly rejected: director Gus Van Sant’s off-puttingly faithful remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Fresh off the critical and commercial success of Good Will Hunting, Van Sant could’ve tried for another feel-good hit or a high-profile for-hire gig. Instead, he…
The Denver Zine Library has come a long way since it began in a shed on Archer Street in 2003. Making its way through six different spaces and tons of readings and events, the library has accumulated a collection of over 15,000 zines, which are available to the public for…
The holidays can be overwhelming. Shopping for presents. Wrapping presents. Listening to your kids complain about the presents you bought them. It’s enough to make anyone say bah humbug. Which is why the organizers of Cabaret Otaku’s Holiday Lights plan to play around with and poke fun at tradition, rather…
There is something inherently un-masculine about the typical holiday craft fair, and Stu and Nicky Alden of the design studio Ink Lounge Creative wanted to do something about it. And Holiday Mancraft, a gathering of local artisans and vendors selling an array of gifts made for men, by men, was…
“I know nobody listens to my radio show and thinks, ‘You know what this needs? Some dancers,’” says This American Life host Ira Glass. “And nobody sits through a dance show and thinks, ‘This needs some guy talking and playing audio clips.’” But that is just what Glass has done…
The holiday season is often called “magical” — and one big catalyst behind that magic is the sense of nostalgia that tradition evokes. Khyentse James is adept at harnessing that sense of nostalgic wonder: Her film-school studies, combined with several years of creating movie-worthy scenes, have made all of her…
After sneaker enthusiast Gary Hughes purchased a pair of knock-off Nike Heineken Dunks thinking they were the real deal, he wanted to avoid being ripped off again. So he created a sneaker exchange in a bar ten years ago; now called Dunkxchange, the international traveling sneaker-culture festival comes to Denver…
You know Akira back and forth. You can quote the key lines from Ghost in the Shell in your sleep. Anime standards like Sailor Moon, Bubblegum Crisis and Dragon Ball Z are all old hat to you. Don’t worry, otaku, there’s still undiscovered territory out there for you. “If you…
Sixteen years ago, Jimi Bernath created an event to commemorate the death of John Lennon, who was shot and killed on December 8, 1980 — but the annual Beatles/John Lennon Memorial Sing-Along is a more of a celebration of life. “The Beatles are perennial,” says Bernath. “They’re as popular as…
Tucked away in the Park Hill neighborhood is Share Denver, a project from Becky Hensley of the Denver Craft Ninjas and the Colorado Bead Company’s Anne Davidson. The two craft-conscious women teamed up to open a studio space where work could be made and techniques taught by and for Denver’s…
When’s the last time you went to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science just to contemplate the dioramas or wander among the fossils and bones of Prehistoric Journey? Once you’ve been through one of the big super-shows — such as the current one, A Day in Pompeii — it…
Artist Viviane Le Courtois asked for a simple trade: cookies and tea in exchange for memories and objects from survivors of the 2013 Boulder floods. Like all of her work, Rescued Memories — which is part of The Flood Project: Rising Above & Rebuilding Boulder Through Art, opening tonight at…
Just because flash fiction is short doesn’t mean that it’s simple. “Some people think that because it’s small, it must be easier,” says Nancy Stohlman, who founded the monthly F-Bomb reading series, which specializes in fiction that falls under the four-minute mark. “Actually, it’s the opposite; it’s like painting the…
When Westword chatted with Boulder photographer James Balog many years ago, he was making waves with his bold, staged portraits of endangered species, photographs that seemed to expose their inner animal souls. By then, though, Balog had already started another chapter, photographing polar bears in their natural habitat with a…
Denver theater patriarch Henry Lowenstein — a painter and set designer in his own right, as well as a foundational pillar at the old Bonfils Theatre and the Denver Civic Theatre — came into his own creative panache and arts-supporting spirit by way of his Estonian mother, Maria. As an…
A trip across the plains over Thanksgiving reminded me how much I love Kent Haruf’s books — 1999’s Plainsong and its sequel, Eventide, at least. (Benediction, the third in the sort-of series about the fictional town of Holt, seems almost like a parody.) Haruf, who now lives in Salida, grew…
The snow is now falling on Denver’s streets, but things were more temperate last Friday when we spotted an interesting style at the Shoppe’s closing party. Freelancer Jessica Joy worked at the Shoppe, as well as Fabric Lab and Plastic Chapel, all before they had to close the doors for…
