In the movies, Don Ameche played Alexander Graham Bell, father of the telephone. Spencer Tracy played Thomas Edison, father of the electric light. Paul Muni played Louis Pasteur, father of pasteurization. But for the father of the nude lap dance, no actor would do. The guy for whom that distinction…
The adjective in the title Bad Bugs Bunny, a program of golden-age Warner Bros. cartoons playing at Chandler Cinemas, bears clarification. Purely on the level of cinematic craft, these shorts aren’t remotely bad. They display the same brilliant wit, peerless comic timing, visual imagination, graphic ingenuity, and musical accomplishment as…
Just because you want to go to the Phoenix Toy Show doesn’t mean you’re stuck in childhood. So what if the prospect of the largest collectible-toy market in the Valley, featuring more than 100 vendors offering everything from G.I. Joes and Barbies to anime memorabilia, makes your mouth water? That…
Stanley Martin Lieber changed the face of American pop culture. Don’t recognize the name? Chop off the last syllable. As Stan Lee — he was saving his full name for later, when he planned to write the Great American Novel — he created or co-created the Fantastic Four, Iron Man,…
Hey, did you hear the one about the Irishman, the Swede, and the, uh, person of Polish descent who were looking for something to do this weekend? Here’s the punchline: The fellow of Polish ancestry, being proud of his heritage, took his pals to the Polish Festival. The sixth annual…
“How lovely to have a figure that’s round instead of flat . . .” So sings the teenage ingenue of Bye Bye Birdie in “How Lovely to Be a Woman.” April Flores, star of the film Voluptuous Biker Babes, seems to agree, and then some: The plus-size porn diva’s abundant…
Among the highlights of this year’s fest are Hi, My Name Is Ryan (the documentary about Phoenix’s eternally youthful Mormon thrash vocalist/performance artist Ryan Avery) and the documentaries The Way We Get By, about a trio of Maine senior citizens who greet troops returning from the war, and I Know…
One-of-a-kind, irrepressible, and/or insufferable, the Valley’s eternally youthful Mormon thrash vocalist/performance artist Ryan Avery rocks the opening night of this year’s PFF. Thu., April 2, 10 p.m., 2009…
The Devil may or may not go down to Georgia on Friday, March 27, but he’d better steer clear of Chester’s Harley-Davidson in Mesa. That’s where his fiddling rival and fellow right-winger Charlie Daniels will be rocking out during Chester’s Backstage Biker Bash III, the opening salvo of the 13th…
In case getting to see fine movies isn’t enough of an incentive in itself, here’s another good reason to check out the sixth annual Mesa Community College International Film Festival: Someday, say 20 or 30 years from now, this year’s featured filmmaker, Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda, might just be accepting…
Did you forget to give your sweetie a special night two week ago? Shame on you, but not to worry. Chandler Cinemas is offering a belated — and brutal — Valentine this weekend: the original 1981 Canadian shocker My Bloody Valentine. What better way to mend those wounded feelings than…
Valley of the Sun, Land of the Rising Sun — what’s the difference? Not much this weekend, as Matsuri: A Festival of Japan returns to Heritage & Science Park. The theme for this year’s edition of the annual fest, a collaboration between Phoenix Parks & Recreation and various area Japanese-American…
“Torture the women!” So said the 19th-century French playwright Sardou, when asked for advice on success in the theater. Phoenix Metropolitan Opera, the upstart kid on the Valley’s fat-lady-sings block, has taken this strategy to heart. Having launched its sophomore season with Puccini’s Tosca (based on Sardou’s play), the company,…
By the mid-21st century, repossession of organs right out of deadbeat transplant recipients will be legal. That’s the gruesome premise behind the 2008 film Repo! The Genetic Opera, which returns to Chandler Cinemas (where it played in December) as part of the Repo! Road Tour 3. Darren Lynn Bousman from…
Two white-bread guys whose pretty folk duets digress into fraternal bickering – it doesn’t sound like the recipe for a long career in show business. Yet the Smothers Brothers, about a half-century after they started, remain comedy legends. Most of this iconic status is thanks to the short-lived CBS variety…
From the lazy shopper’s point of view, it’s the ideal holiday gift. It’s suitable for everyone on your list — except sullen teenagers, whose agony over its lameness will be entertaining. You don’t have to brave crowds at the mall, it gives you something to do after the other presents…
“Actually, I know very little about astrology,” says Harvey Sid Fisher by phone from L.A. “But I thought, no one’s written a song for all the signs. I could become a billionaire.” With this incentive, Fisher set to work on a cycle of songs based on each sign of the…
“Actually, I know very little about astrology,” says Harvey Sid Fisher by phone from L.A. “But I thought, no one’s written a song for all the signs. I could become a billionaire.” With this incentive, Fisher set to work on a cycle of songs based on each sign of the…
The list of what frightens Americans would be way too long to reproduce here, but have you ever wondered what frightens Pakistanis? To learn that, you can check out the fourth annual International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival. Hell’s Ground (Zibahkhana), a 2007 Pakistani shocker featuring a chain-mace-wielding killer in…
Somewhere or other, it’s written that to everything there is a season. But there are people who just can’t accept this — people who enjoy listening to Bing Crosby sing “Silver Bells” in February, people who crave pumpkin pie in June. If you’re a baseball fan of this ilk, here…
The narrator speaks in the sort of stentorian tones that used to explain photosynthesis, democracy, or continental drift in eighth-grade classroom films. But this time, he says: “This is marijuana. Official name, cannabis sativa. Its mind-expanding power has been known for two thousand years. The secret of its sexual power…
In the U.S., the psycho/slasher movie has usually been a sordid, depressing affair. Leave it to the Italians to make it an exercise in high style. A fine example is Dario Argento’s lyrically titled, blood-splattered The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970), a must-see specimen of the so-called giallo genre…
