June 2015

A couple bad movies and my first report on Colorado’s pot industry.

Is Denver’s ‘Pot Coffee’ Experiment Over Already?
5280.com – June 30, 2015

You may have already missed your chance to taste the “pot coffee” you heard about in downtown Denver. CanBria Cafe, located in the lobby of the cannabis-friendly Nativ Hotel at Wazee and 16th streets, opened earlier this month with a menu of gourmet coffee drinks, which included lattes made with options like soy, coconut, or hemp milk, as well as unflavored, vanilla, and peppermint cannabidiol (CBD) oil. But if you visit the café today, you can only order a regular latte, because the marijuana extracts are currently on hold pending legal action.

An Open Secret
World Magazine – June 27, 2015

It is possible there is an institutionalized issue of child molestation in Hollywood, but this is not the film to expose it. Amy Berg’s documentary An Open Secret is marketed as “the secret Hollywood doesn’t want you to know.” But the film obscures its “secret” through euphemism, irrelevant context, and insinuation.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
World Magazine – July 11, 2015

It’s nothing new for coming-of-age tales to introduce the protagonist to death through the loss of a friend. Requirements for this story are some combination of the following: a self-deprecating hero, benignly neglectful parents, an odd but understanding teacher, an economically challenged neighborhood, and, of course, a heavily foreshadowed but still surprising death.