Self-proclaimed psychic medium John Edward ranks as either the “Oprah of the Other Side” or, as South Park and Penn Jillette would have it, “The Biggest Douche in the Universe.” The distinction hinges less on whether his gifts are real than on whether it’s appropriate to erect an empire on…
Blame the purchasing power of adult aficionados or the astonishing array of assembled talent, but comics are booming. Just look at conventions: Once small regional affairs, today Arizona alone hosts multiple cons annually. The 2011 chaos kicks off with Amazing Arizona Comic Con, headlined by four-time Eisner winner Jeph Loeb…
Junk drawers filled with things like extra keys are the packrat middens from which future generations will reconstruct our society. Archaeologists yet unborn will assign totemic significance to this folderol and they won’t be far wrong. After all, unless you’re a time traveler, why hold on to so many old…
Stop us if you’ve heard this one: A French clown and a Hungarian equestrian ballerina get hitched in Venice and form Zoppé, an Italian family circus — a proper circus, alive with clowns, acrobats, equestrian escapades, and cavorting canines, all wrapped around a story instead of some high-concept contortionist acid…
Was it Shakespeare who quipped that every tale benefits from the admixture of zombies and dragons? Perhaps, but judging from the quantity of such offerings crowding shelves and theater kiosks, it was more likely someone from marketing. Whatever its source, the axiom is bound to hold true for the French…
These days, downtown Phoenix’s historic buildings are the domain of pawnshops, flophouses and Pizzeria Bianco. But less than a century ago, when trolley bells yet echoed off the two- and three-story brick buildings lining Washington Street, they were homes, inns, and stores bustling with commerce. One brief decade of post-war…
Christmas songs, holidays specials and Frances Smith Cohen’s Snow Queen — a balletic retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale, set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev — remind us that the yuletide is a time for setting aside our darkly distorted worldview and donning rosier glasses. Decked with the…
Director Edgar Wright once said that he structured Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World like a musical, only the characters broke out into fights instead of songs. If you didn’t give this paean to the Nintendo generation a look the first time around, or even if you did, Scott Pilgrim vs…
Nicky Silver might be the playwright for our time: a master of genre mash-ups that exults in transgressing taboos, chasing skeletons from closets, and punting propriety into the cheap seats while dropping more cultural references than the Fox Sunday lineup. Imagine The Breakfast Club written, directed, and performed by Oscar…
They say the innocent need not fear the law, but tell that to the three Tucson juveniles bullied into falsely confessing to the August 1991 Wat Promkunaram Buddhist temple slayings after a fourth “friend” implicated them in his own false confession; or to alleged Phoenix triggerman Jonathan Doody, who confessed…
Tattoo artist, one-time Guinness World Record holder, and star of the only TLC program not focused on little people, sister wives, or mega-broods, Kat Von D generates more ink in the press than she rams into skin. Still, the artist’s book signing of The Tattoo Chronicles, her tell-all photo-diary of…
Even if you don’t know Chita Rivera from Chi Chi Rodriguez, you’ll find something to love at La Gran Fiesta, a far-reaching festividad of Hispanic and Latin culture. , bring la familia to the free two-day bash featuring crafts, food, mariachi, ballet folklorico, and Latin dance, with some capoeira and…
Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame received numerous film treatments, but none as iconic as the silent Lon Chaney production playing this weekend during Silent Saturdays. Charles Laughton’s “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” may echo on from the 1939 talkie, but it was the pathos mutely projected by the Man…
Even on good days, downtown Mesa can resemble a ghost town, so where better for a walking tour of historic haunts this Halloween season? Don your comfiest sneakers and join tour guides for the two-hour Mesa Ghost Tour & Historical Walk, a sinister stroll of troubling tales and haunts on…
Old-school schlockfests collide with new-wave splatfests at the sixth annual International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, four days of more than 30 fanciful flicks and gory chicks. Join special guests, actors Lance Henriksen and Charles Cyphers, for autographs and Q&A sessions following screenings of their films — James Cameron’s classic…
Ain’t no party like a pagan party, ’cause a pagan party don’t stop . . . until the village men are torn to pieces by ecstatically entranced women, that is. Okay, that never happened, but harvest has always been a time for celebration; today’s pagans continue this tradition in a…
In a world that should have been, “Neon at Night” would have been the name of a progressive rock band fronted by Rod Serling. Sadly, that world is not ours. But chances are, prog rock will not be far from your mind as you peruse these sculptural works of harnessed…
