Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey. E.L. James’ popular trio of “mommy porn” books are popular, but there was kinky romance before them — and thank the various gods, there will be plenty after. Local Colorado authors Reggie and Kasi Alexander (two of the three subjects of this week’s feature…
The word “robot” first appeared in the play Rossum’s Universal Robotsor R.U.R, written in the 1920s by Czech author Karel Capek. In it, a group of scientists create human-like creatures that ultimately rise against their makers. In the ensuing battle, human beings are wiped out and the formula for creating…
Since 1990, Wits End Comedy Club has held down a corner of Westminster, nurturing the fledgling careers of local comedians while drawing only the heartiest or free-ticket-havingest of crowds to the north suburbs. Wits End claims to be the first comedy club in history opened by women, though sustained ownership…
That the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is hosting the Chicago Field Museum’s Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age is awesome enough — and believe us, the exhibit is truly awesome — but the DMNS has added a whole Snowmass portion, featuring some items that have never…
With its bizarre onslaught of sentient drugs, invisible aliens and time-tripping insanity, Don Coscarelli’s John Dies at the End (opening tonight at the Sie FilmCenter) is like no film you’ve seen before. Adapted from David Wong’s debut novel of the same name, John puts the fate of reality — not…
Valentine’s Day fell on Thursday this year, but some of the love will carry through the weekend. Whether a V-Day-themed roller-skating party is your jam or you’re in the mood for a little friendly Vogue-posing competition, there are plenty of parties to choose from across the city — and none…
Month of Photography 2013 officially begins on March 1, but Alicia Bailey’s tiny temple to book-art, Abecedarian Gallery, is getting a head start tonight, when Photo Book Works, an international exhibition of artists’ books incorporating photos and photographic processes, opens in conjunction with the Third Friday Artwalk on Santa Fe…
Michael Paglia visits Robischon Gallery and William Havu Gallery in this week’s review, “The Nature Lovers,” taking in a group show, an exhibit featuring both Sam Scott & Jim Waid, as well as a show from Homare Ikeda. These three shows are all heavily inspired by nature and the art…
The Boulder International Film Festival opens tonight with Muscle Shoals and continues through the weekend with three more days of independent cinema, symposiums and events featuring special guests from all over the world. It can be tricky to pick films from the festival’s extensive schedule, so we asked co-founders Kathy…
Polyamory literally means “many loves” and is generally defined as the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. This seems like a pretty easy definition to understand — with added room for interpretation. But as…
The LIDA Project’s newest show, RUR/lol (opening tonight at work | space), tackles the ever popular topic of robots and apocalypse. Whether because of our inherent mistrust of technology designed to replace us, a deep-seated suspicion that our artificially intelligent creations are likely to outlive us, or just an intuitive…
The Boulder theater scene has sprung to life lately, after several years when pretty much the only choice locals had were the — admittedly excellent but generally traditional — offerings of Boulder’s Dinner Theatre. Anyone wanting new or boundary-breaking works had to travel to Denver. But now new or newish…
#93: Evan Weissman Evan Weissman already deserves the Colorado Creative designation as a member of the wildly creative Buntport Theater (the whole troupe was honored as such when they received a Westword MasterMind award back in 2005 as part of the inaugural class). But then, late last year, he came…
Love is weird. Most anyone over the age of, say, sixteen or so has at least one story of an ill-fated romance based on the old adage of “opposites attract.” Worse, it’s usually more “whatever will cause us the most confusion, chaos and, most likely, pain attracts.” That’s not to…
The landscape has played a persistent role in providing themes for artists, not just in the expected neo-traditional categories, but also — and of more interest to me — in modern and contemporary art. As an example, “Western” art has recently been redefined so that it is no longer dominated…
20th Century Modernists. For her first show, Thérèse O’Gorman — who moved from Santa Fe to become the exhibition director at David Cook Fine Art in LoDo — has put together 20th Century Modernists, which highlights abstraction done in the West. The show proper, in the street-level space, is dedicated…
Here’s a question you can spit back next time someone complains that our popular culture is top-to-bottom depraved: “Then why are our high-school witches, vampires and superheroes so passionate about their abstinence?” That glitter-pored Twilight hunk and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man have won tween hearts and Hollywood billions by cavalierly refusing…
Life goes inexorably, chillingly, on. The Up series, Michael Apted’s famous calendrical march, presses on now into its eighth episode, with the same dozen or so Brits from across the class spectrum once again interviewed about their lives after the usual seven-year interval. Suddenly, all of these pitiable souls, subjected…
Blithe Spirit doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a critique of upper-class society or an evocative exploration of the border between the living and the dead, despite all the ghostly goings-on. Even though Noel Coward wrote the play in 1941, when the bombs were dropping on London, there are no socio-political…
Does anyone care about John McClane anymore? That’s not the same as asking if you want to see A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth in this series of films with increasingly outlandish action — and increasingly cumbersome titles. The most recent entry — the slick, ridiculous hit, Live…
Abbas Kiarostami is preoccupied with my tape recorder. He wonders if it’s too far away from where he’s sitting. He makes his translator switch from one side of him to another so that the recorder is between them. After a while, clearly still anxious about it, he picks it up…
Three local film festivals — the Boulder International Film Festival, the Festivus Film Festival and Women + Film — will light up Denver-area screens over the latter half of February and the early part of March, providing plenty of viewing opportunities for movie buffs. The mission of the Boulder International…
