Film on the Rocks will screen “The Matrix,” “The Wizard of Oz” and other fantastical titles as part of its 25th anniversary year at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Oh, and “Shrek.” The movie series, programmed by Denver Film, will again feature five films, with $20 tickets per screening ($35 for VIP seats) and pre-show entertainment from host and Denver comic Janae Burris, followed by live musical performances and the movie. The 1939 fantasy “The Wizard of Oz” is celebrating its 85th anniversary in 2024. (MGM) Tickets for the series — which will also feature “Deadpool” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” — are o ..read more

Denver’s ascendant Asian food scene Sunday-May 4. Many of the metro area’s best new restaurants offer creative takes on traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and other diverse Asian cuisines, which makes the 2nd annual Mile High Asian Food Week an idea worth bringing back. More than 100 participating kitchens — from roving trucks and street-food vendors to upscale names such as Hop Alley and sắp sửa — will take part in the event, which is timed to May’s Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month. Look especially for a delectable offering of pastries, coffees, teas an ..read more

Denver has always been happy to flaunt its most visible artistic assets, given that they’ve helped reshape the city into a walkable playground of sculptures, murals and interactive installations. Our 400-piece public art collection contains wildly diverse works, from Denver International Airport’s infamous “Mustang” (a.k.a. Blucifer) and the Colorado Convention Center’s “I See What You Mean” (unofficially: the Big Blue Bear) to the towering “Dancers” outside Denver Performing Arts Complex. But there are hundreds more, ranging from pioneering Latino murals to historic placards and poetry. “We h ..read more

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But with the Craft Brewers Conference underway there, the results of the event’s hallmark competition, the World Beer Cup, were bound to get out. On Wednesday night, beermakers from around the globe celebrated their accolades in what’s billed as the industry’s largest and most prestigious competition. This year, World Beer Cup judges evaluated 9,300 beers from 2,060 breweries. Participation was down substantially from 10,213 beers from 2,376 breweries in 2023, possibly due to the fact the competition now happens annually instead of every other yea ..read more

In 1999, the U.S. women’s soccer team captivated sports fans across the globe when it won the World Cup and became the first team in the female league to do so on home soil. The championship title was a pivotal moment for women’s sports that inspired a generation of young girls, among them Miranda Spencer and Annie Weaver. “I remember the 1999 World Cup and the Fab Five and the rest of that group, the ’99ers,” said Weaver, who was 5 years old then. “That was the first time it was broadcast live and people were seeing women being extremely successful in a professional sport. Seeing them win, se ..read more

Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share these mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. “Day,” by Michael Cunningham (Random House, 2023)“The Hungry Season: A Journey of War, Love and Survival,” by Lisa M. Hamilton (Little, Brown & Company, 2023) This is a nonfiction account of one Hmong woman’s life, from her childhood in a remote mountain village, through refugee ..read more

I’ve completed 17 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles in the past 14 weeks. Mostly by myself. Over that same time, I also cut way back on booze, halved my phone screen time (okay, it’s maybe 30% less), and gone on a dozen hikes. All without losing a single cardboard piece. I never really saw myself as a puzzler, but it’s become a nice way to put aside the problems of the world and focus on something else for five or 10 minutes, or for a couple of hours. It helps with my sometimes short attention span, and puzzles are extremely satisfying to finish. And while 17 puzzles might sound like a lot, it’s noth ..read more

The rhythms of Jane Austen’s novels are so persuasive, their challenges and resolutions so familiar, that playwright Kate Hamill can merrily tease our knowledge again and again in her winking adaptation of “Emma,” now at the Denver Center, through May 5. Those beats are after all, the stuff of many a movie rom-com. Still, who would have guessed the seeming influence of one Yorgos Lanthimos? The Greek filmmaker’s “Poor Things” featured his own Emma (Stone) doing an unexpectedly zany, quasi-“Soul Train” dance; Rachel Weisz devolved into something similarly wild in his film “The Favourite”. Those ..read more

The arrest of Denver jam-band fixture Jay Bianchi this week on suspicion of sexual assault follows three decades’ worth of other legal trouble and criminal allegations related to his businesses and personal practices. There have also been convictions for assault, drug possession and the flouting of COVID-era closure mandates. But critics say the Denver Police Department could have done more by publicly addressing the sexual assault allegations sooner, with or without charges, and by communicating more effectively with alleged victims who have been calling for action for years. They also believ ..read more

Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath and the Eagles all released major albums in 1975. So did Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Paul Simon and Led Zeppelin. And you can still find some of them (probably most of them) at Wax Trax Records, which opened in Denver that year and has been Capitol Hill’s neighborhood record shop for three generations of music fans. But you’ll also find vinyl pressings by modern stars like Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, not to mention fringe bands and local acts, which isn’t something most people would have predicted in the 1990s as CD sales and online mu ..read more