Far too often, those who work in the music industry are so concerned with making a living they often forget they’re capable, at their best, of making history as well. They sacrifice art and artists in the name of commerce, then sleep soundly wrapped in bedspreads made of silk and…
Ten years ago, Robert Harris picked up the phone to find on the other end a relative stranger bearing extraordinary news. This man was at a film exchange in Toronto, where movies are housed and rented out to exhibitors, and he was holding in his hands canisters of film containing…
There is only one reason Jon Favreau’s new film is called Made. Not too long ago, his old friend and co-star Vince Vaughn called him up and told him, in no uncertain terms, “You gotta write something that can get made.” It was less a demand than it was a…
Matt Stone has little time to talk. It’s Tuesday, July 17, 1 p.m. in Los Angeles, yet Stone and Trey Parker have yet to finish a television show that will debut some 30 hours from now–an episode of South Park titled “Terrance and Garfunkel,” in which the farting, fighting Canadian…
Robert Scott Crane insists he had no idea that people would be so fascinated with his famous father’s penis (or is that his father’s famous penis?). “We knew it would be big,” Scotty Crane says, “but we didn’t know how big.” He’s talking not about the member in question–of its…
Originally, this was to be a story about how Stan Lee, the industry icon who ran Marvel Comics for decades and co-created Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, wound up remaking archrival DC Comics’ most venerable heroes in his own image. The 12-part miniseries, Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating, was set…
By his own definition, Bruce Campbell is a “midgrade, kind of hammy actor”–a B-movie star, in other words, a man whose career unfolds, like a Swedish porn loop, on Cinemax in the wee small hours of the morning. When I mentioned to a handful of people I was writing about…
Alan Cumming is, in no particular order, the following: an actor, a pop icon, a Renaissance man, a sex symbol, a bon viveur and the boy next door. “I am a combination of all those things,” insists the 36-year-old Scot, who punctuates every other sentence with a sly giggle that…
Welcome to summer in Colorado! ‘Tis the season to kick back, soak up some rays, listen to music in your local park, shoot some rapids, take a walk for a good cause, ride your bike a hundred miles into the mountains, spend a weekend surrounded by art, history or wine…
If you’ve somehow made it to the first weekend in September without attending even one of the bazillion summer festivals put on throughout the state, get off your rump and mosey on down to Civic Center Park over the Labor Day holiday. There you can join about a half-million of…
Tenth Annual Colorado Mountain WineFest, September 14-16, Palisade, $18 in advance, $20 at the gate; non-drinker/designated-driver tickets $15 anytime, 1-800-704-3667, www.coloradowinefest.com. Registration information for the AT&T Wireless Bicycle Tour of the Vineyards is available at 303-635-2816 or www.active.com.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre is a world-class concert venue, hosting major rock and pop acts whose big-buck tickets sell out fast. It’s also part of a Denver mountain park, paid for and maintained by taxpayers, and the city wants local residents to know the park is for everybody. That’s why, on…
The quiet little town of Salida (population 5,500), in the Arkansas Valley, suffers a major art attack every year on the third weekend in June, when the Salida Art Walk literally takes over the town. “All the galleries are open, of course, but just about every business downtown — real…
In rodeo circles, June and July are known as “Cowboy Christmas,” the time of year when professional riders and ropers earn most of their income. The Greeley Independence Stampede, now in its 131st year, comes right in the middle of the high-income season, beginning in late June and culminating in…
One of Denver’s oldest cultural-heritage festivals is a moveable feast, even though its very name comes from an early-spring celebration. In Japan, Washington, D.C., and other temperate climes, the Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival, is timed to coincide with the picturesque flowering of cherry trees, usually in April. In…
Arts festivals, food festivals, music festivals, heritage festivals, historical festivals, bike and balloon festivals — by the middle of July, even serious summer celebrants can come down with a bad case of festival fatigue. Residents of mountain resort towns are particularly prone to the syndrome, as hordes of flatlanders invade…
Forget wagon trains and sodbusters. It was the railroad that won the West, powerful steam locomotives hauling raw materials to markets back East and returning with settlers from places like Chicago and St. Louis. Large-scale mining was not possible until narrow-gauge track was laid through the mountains; more than one…
Back in the day, before limited-stakes gambling transformed the former mining town of Central City into a hub of casino activity, the streets were lined with bars, with a general store and a newspaper office about the only non-drinking establishments along Main Street. In the 1960s, the bars attracted local…
With all of the attention that’s been focused on urban sprawl in the past year, it’s easy to forget that half of Colorado’s land — 32.5 million acres — is given over to agriculture. Although the majority of the state’s 29,500 farms and ranches produce meat animals or the crops…
For the next five days, Richard Lewis will seldom leave his North Dallas hotel room, hidden away at the far end of the top floor with a view of overpasses, office buildings and distant dark clouds. He will venture out only to visit a couple of radio and television stations,…
At this moment, Baz Luhrmann, control freak and self-proclaimed ringleader of conspirators “who conspire to something greater than ourselves,” is not in control at all. The cameraman trailing behind him, like a faithful puppy awaiting treats, does not work for the director; rather, he is in the employ of the…
Tamra Davis is bound by contract not to discuss the film that, at this very moment, she’s editing for release next year. “I’m officially not supposed to do any press for it,” the director says sheepishly, so she offers a few off-the-record comments about the movie, a road-trip comedy-drama starring…
