All photos by Byron Graham.

Last night, during the grand opening of Colorado's first Alamo Drafthouse theater, badass actress and Denver native Pam Grier got personal with an audience of cinephile strangers. Grier, a funny and engaging public speaker, freely discussed a wide array of topics including moving accounts of her personal struggles and tragic early victimhood and lighter subjects such as shooting women-in-prison exploitation films in the Philippines and famous exes Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Richard Pryor. The night's host, Devin Faraci of Badass Digest, guided the evening through many of the highlights of Grier's film career. Throughout the evening, Faraci occasionally wore the starstruck expression of man sharing a mental high-five with his 12-year-old self -- especially while Pam Grier straddled his lap during an anecdote.

Aside from screening first-run movies and offering a wider array of food and beverage options than your average concession stand, events like these are what make a boutique franchise like Alamo Drafhouse stand out -- events that celebrate cinema while elucidating the humanity of those behind and in front of the camera. Continue reading for more photos of Alamo's first night.

See also:
- Alamo Drafthouse offers bargain movies Friday, Pam Grier Monday, Signature Events
- Photos: Alamo Drafthouse will open Monday; here's a sneak peek
- The top 5 ass-kicking Pam Grier roles

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This ID was up to no good on Girls over the weekend.

On "Bad Friend," the episode of the zeitgeist-courting HBO comedy Girls that aired Sunday, the characters decide to buy some coke and indulge in cocaine-related hijinks. At one point, Lena Dunham's character, Hannah, and Andrew Rannell's Elijah are seen chopping out lines on a toilet seat and the camera lingers on the implement of choice: Elijah's Colorado ID.

See also:
- Of Mice and Menver
- Video: Adam Cayton-Holland makes his late-night TV debut on Conan
- An ode to Suburu, the unofficial car of Colorado

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Denver comic and former Westword scribe Adam Cayton-Holland will be making his standup debut on TBS's Conan next Tuesday, January 29. "This is my first appearance on a late-night TV show," Cayton-Holland tells us. "I did a small spot on the TV show Happy Endings, but yeah, in terms of late night and as a comic, this is my debut. I'm very psyched."

See also:
- Andrew Orvedahl and Adam Cayton-Holland to record comedy albums at the Bug Theatre
- Adam Cayton-Holland: Comic proposes onstage at Red Rocks to a girl who doesn't exist (VIDEO)
- Conan O'Brien joke about Westword's medical marijuana reviewer search: Laugh at us, America!

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Is there life after death? After eighteen years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, most of them spent in the debilitating confines of death row, Damien Echols plans to find out.

In 1993 Echols, then eighteen, and two other Arkansas teenagers were arrested and charged with the murders of three children. The trials of the West Memphis Three, as they became known, offered little evidence but plenty of hysteria over alleged satanic rituals and teens who wore black clothing.

See also:
- Joe Arridy was the happiest man on death row
- Gary Lee Davis: Colorado's last volunteer for the death penalty
- Music can free your soul, but can it spring the West Memphis Three?

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It's time for the 2012 edition of Westword's Denver Web Awards, our annual celebration of Denver's greatest digital minds. This time, we're introducing new categories to recognize the area's creative and forward-thinking app developers, but we've made sure to include a few favorites, like Best Shameless Self-Promoter and Most Viral Video. But the best part? You help nominate the winners. Skip ahead to vote in our Denver Web Awards poll now, or read below for more details about this year's party and awards.

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Photos by Natalie Gonzalez

Left to right: Joseph Clayton, Charlie Ergen, John Hickenlooper and MIchael Kelly at the official opening of Blockbuster's new worldwide headquarters.

Blockbuster, now a subsidy of Dish Network, yesterday officially opened its international headquarters in Colorado -- specifically, at the Meridian International Office Park in Douglas County. The move comes with the possibility of $2.5 million in Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits from the Colorado Economic Development Commission, since Blockbuster promises to bring 150 jobs to the state over the next five years.

After brief remarks from Dish President and CEO Joseph Clayton, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen, Governor John Hickenlooper and Blockbuster President Michael Kelly, the four men grasped a pair of giant scissors to cut the ribbon that will open a new era in Blockbuster history.

See also:
- "Start-Up Colorado" - House Democrats announce job creations package
- Blockbuster is moving to Colorado. I'm sending poop.
- Dish Network on Most Hated Companies List - but Comcast places even higher
- Governor Hickenlooper's Colorado bucket list

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Deanne Stillman's richly textured works of nonfiction about life and death in the Mojave Desert involve more than casual research, and consequently take some time in the writing -- from eight to ten years each. Her true-crime debut, Twentynine Palms, explored the 1991 murder of two girls by a berserk Gulf War veteran and drew praise from Hunter S. Thompson. Her study of the fate of the country's wild horses, Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, appeared on several reviewers' "best of 2008" lists.

Stillman's latest book, Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in California History, is, at first glance, about the dragnet launched in 2003 to catch a hermit who killed a lawman for no apparent reason. But it's also packed with southern California history, local lore and desert ecology.

Stillman, who teaches writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert, will be at the Tattered Cover, 2526 East Colfax Avenue, at 7:30 p.m. tonight to sign her book, which she recently discussed with us.

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Plano, Texas-based Cinemark Holdings owns the Century 16 Aurora, where the shootings that killed twelve people and injured dozens took place last night. This morning, the company released a statement about the tragedy.

"Cinemark is deeply saddened about this tragic incident. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and loved ones, our employees, and the Aurora community," the company said.

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Today Show and Tell (and all the other Westword blogs) rolled out a new user profile platform dubbed My Voice Nation. Your voice and opinion in our comment sections will now be amplified through a fancy new commenting program called Lifefyre ("live fire"). Read all about it below.

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Instagram user erinbeatty16

Instagram is the latest, and obviously the hippest, photo-sharing app; it allows anyone with a smartphone to play amateur photographer, transforming regular old snapshots into filtered, fogged and color-tinted works of art at the touch of a finger.

Search "Denver" on Statigram, one of the app's web-based viewing platforms, and sift through a variety of local tags like denverartmuseum, denvernuggets and denverairport. This week, we're taking a walk on the wild side and exploring the Denver Zoo through the lens of Instagram users. Page down if you can't get enough of cute animals and even cuter kids.

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