‘The Truth According to Ember’ is a summer rom-com about Native people learning to be their authentic selves.
Review
Posted inJuly 2024
A new documentary confronts water scarcity in the West
In Mirasol: Looking at the Sun, Colorado farmers fight to save their communities.
Posted inJune 2024: The Idea of Wilderness
New York’s Whitney Biennial turns its attention to the West
Contemporary artists and Western aesthetics get their due with ‘Western art’ for the 21st century.
Posted inArticles
Satirizing gentrification in ‘The Curse’
Avant-garde entertainment’s new topic of interest: urban transformation in the American Southwest.
Posted inArticles
Who are the real Black superheroes?
A photo exhibition captures the courage of Mamie Till surrounding the lynching of her son, Emmett Till.
Posted inArticles
‘Frybread Face and Me’ shows the complexity of Indigeneity
Billy Luther’s new coming-of-age film shows characters grappling with city life juxtaposed against the reservation.
Posted inArticles
The era of the Black Western has arrived. Is it here to stay?
The miniseries, ‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves,’ doesn’t fully live up to its potential to showcase a multifaceted Black identity.
Posted inArticles
A new film asks: how do you make art in a city you can’t afford?
‘Fantasy A Gets a Mattress’ is a dark, surreal, fun adventure that deals with themes of eviction, homelessness and disability.
Posted inArticles
Grief, girls and the gross in Vauhini Vara’s new collection
‘This Is Salvaged’ considers what unites, including death and survival.
Posted inArticles
What downwinders inherited at Trinity
In the days of ’Oppenheimer,’ an exhibition advocates expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
Posted inAugust 1, 2023: In the Line of Fire
Consoling spirits
A visit to the sacred Ireichō at the Japanese American National Museum.
Posted inArticles
A bumpy, interesting ride in ‘The Unknown Country’
The film’s exploration of ‘Middle America’ is at its best when it lets Lily Gladstone take the wheel.
Posted inArticles
Orientalism and the West at Denver Art Museum
The museum’s ‘Near East to Far West’ exhibition asks critical questions about the colonial context of Western art but misses something important.
Posted inMay 1, 2023: Reemergence
The many ways to see a story
Acclaimed Indigenous author Debra Magpie Earling returns with a new novel.
Posted inArticles
A climate heist and revenge movie
‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ stands firm in its sympathetic framing of its protagonists, and then asks you to evaluate yourself.
Posted inApril 1, 2023: The Path Forward
Lezley Saar’s ‘Diorama Drama’ and me
Sculpture that captures the colors of grief.
Posted inArticles
Artist Cecilia Vicuña’s Sonoran Quipu reassembles the desert
The installation at Tucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art is made from the landscape.
Posted inApril 1, 2023: The Path Forward
Jackson as a safe haven in ‘The Last of Us’ is science fiction
Only the extremely wealthy might survive the Apocalypse in today’s western Wyoming town.
Posted inArticles
Invisible Denver made indelible in a new documentary
‘The Holly’ connects the dots between the Mile High City’s history of gang violence, real estate development, law enforcement practices and one complicated man.
Posted inArticles
Displaced by the climate crisis
Jake Bittle’s new book foregrounds the experience of those already affected by a worsening climate.