Filmmaker Kevin Smith has spent nearly 20 years intermittently donning the trenchcoat of his on-screen avatar, Silent Bob. Smith and his real-life pal Jason Mewes, a.k.a. mouthy stoner Jay, gear up again, bringing their crosscountry tour behind their newest adventure to the East Valley Thursday, September 12.Jay & Silent Bob’s…

Russell Brand’s listed tourmates (Jesus Christ, Che Guevara, Gandhi, Malcolm X, and, um, Hitler) also serve as a killer dead-or-alive dinner party dream team. There’ll be plenty of food for thought when the English funnyman brings his Messiah Complex world tour to Phoenix Saturday, September 7.The multi-hyphenate comic has had…

While people are still flipping their lids over Orange is the New Black, we wouldn’t blame cult film queen Mink Stole if she considered it old hat. She tackled the role of Esther, devout Christian on death row, in Steve Balderson’s 2009 tongue-in-cheek homage to women-in-prison flicks, Stuck! Stole gets…

The bittersweet beauty of David Maisel’s aerial photography, featured in the current exhibition “Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime” at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, lies in its subversion of the legend of the American West as a vast expanse of unspoiled land mass. Maisel himself talks in…

It’s only been eight days since SummerSlam, the WWE’s marquee dog-days pay-per-view showdown, but the fed’ll be shifting gears from the event’s aftermath to ramping up for September’s Night of Champions. Monday Night RAW will be a test of which grapplers can extend their SummerSlam heat.The usual suspects of the…

That the design and filmmaking collective MK12 hails from the Show-Me State seems entirely appropriate. The Kansas City-based crew collaborates often with musicians and major studio film directors to turn their ideas into exciting visuals. AIGA Arizona, the local branch of the national association of design professionals, brings MK12 and…

Big parties can be total blasts. Until the riff-raff that no one knows starts acting up, that is. In the Great Arizona Puppet Theater’s The Princess, The Unicorn, and The Smelly Foot Troll, the royal daughter’s open invite birthday celebration attracts a certain unwanted guest on Thursday, August 15.The shindig…

The Phoenix Wolves’ July 31 loss to the Harrisburg City Islanders sealed their elimination from the USL Pro playoffs. The Valley-based footballers will attempt to end their inaugural season on a high note against fellow cellar dwellers, the Rochester Rhinos, on Friday, August 16.The nighttime match against The Roc may…

If Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that the underdogs somehow find a way to overcome adversity and triumph in the end. So, with fingers crossed, it might be the perfect time to catch the Phoenix Wolves as they play their ultimate game of the season Saturday, August 10.It’s been…

Last year, Arizona was named the number one entrepreneurial state in the union by CNNMoney, via Kauffman Foundation’s Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. Unsurprisingly, it takes maximum hustle to bring life to the desert and if you’ve got it, you’ll feel at home at CO+HOOTS’ Biz Book Club Tuesday, August 6.The…

When the Las Vegas hotel and casino of his then-residency seemingly stopped promoting his shows, The Amazing Johnathan channeled his inner Peter Gibbons from Office Space last December and simply stopped going. After 13 years of headlining in Sin City, the comic-magician’s hustling, and he’ll go for tricks and giggles…

Steven Spielberg mercifully delivered us from crudely rendered on-screen dinosaurs with Jurassic Park 20 years ago. Whether the blockbuster was the beginning of your love of ancient reptiles or just one of the high points in your paleontological fixation, you’ll wanna claw your way to the Phoenix DinoCon Saturday, July…

It’s hard to improve on the simple joy of finding a vintage, upright arcade game in an unexpected spot, but the artists who contributed work to last February’s exhibition “The Artcade Show” certainly did. Their powered-up custom cabinet graphics both draw from and bolster the simple but addictive gameplay housed…

Copper State Poetry Slam organizer Jeremiah Blue is even-handed in assessing Phoenix’s stature: “We are fairly solid, in terms of slam poetry.” The city’s best slam poetry teams will see just how solid when they vie amongst challengers from around Arizona for the statewide championship on Friday, July 19.The slam…

Performance poet Jason Bayani and visual artist Casebeer couldn’t be more different in their exploration of words. Their works come together at bibliophile paradise Lawn Gnome Publishing on the evening of Saturday, July 6.An accomplished veteran of the slam poetry circuit, Bayani’s first book Amulet, a powerful collection of poems…

“Will It Blend?” is the ongoing series of online videos by personal kitchen appliance manufacturer Blendtec in which CEO Tom Dickson gleefully wields their marquee products to chew up basically anything from an iPhone to a Justin Bieber doll. Phoenix Art Museum gets in on the act with its own…

True sci-fi nerds were way into Princess Leia well before Jabba the Hutt dressed the Rebel Alliance heroine down in Return of the Jedi. The magnetic allure of her take-no-guff attitude, whether returning enemy fire or quipping back at Han Solo, is sure to make an appearance at Scandalesque’s Sexy…

Whether you’re reading this on tree-killing paper or a screen manufactured by low-wage foreign workers, you’ve probably tuned out the moral implications of the world’s general acceptance of destructive and dehumanizing practices in pursuit of so-called progress. One man feels the heat of our choices in The Fever, on stage…

It’s common to see chartered party buses pull up to nightlife hot spots and deploy hollering bros and dolled-up divas. Scottsdale Public Art flips the script on Saturday, June 22, by gathering culture-minded passengers for IN FLUX Cycle 3 Multi-City Art Tour.IN FLUX was founded in 2010, to connect local…

Before Google Glass, there was the Power Glove. The wearable Nintendo controller is practically a supporting character in The Wizard, the 1989 film screening Saturday, June 15, in conjunction with the Phoenix Art Museum’s exhibit “The Art of the Video Games.”Corey (played by Fred Savage) jets from his broken home…

It was in the grown-man anthem “30 Something” that Jay-Z declared that age 30 was the new 20. That presumably made 40 the new 30. Regardless of the fuzzy math, Japanese superhero Ultraman Taro is celebrated for his big four-oh on Friday, June 14.The Five Ultra Brothers, the red-and-silver-clad protectors…

It’s a downright shame that just as The Western opened up on the edge of downtown Scottsdale, George Jones gave up the ghost and passed on. We could see The Possum chilling in the rustic confines of Tucker Woodbury and Charlie Levy’s Scottsdale roadhouse. The beat lives on there with…