Herewith, for your entertainment/discussion, an Unofficial Top 8 Highlights of Comedian Gilbert Gottfried’s Career: 8) His “You fool!”-spouting regular on the late Nineties/early Aughts version of Hollywood Squares 7) Jerry the Belly Button Elf, Ren & Stimpy 6) various, VH1’s Best Week Ever 5) his proclivity for voicing various birds,…
The new semester starts in just a few days. Thank God? Yes, because if you’re like us, you’re probably looking for anything to break the routine of lounging on the couch or by the pool. Seriously, though, you don’t really want to go back to school, especially after checking out…
May 20 was a red-letter day for this year’s Arizona Diamondbacks team – red meaning scarlet. Up to that point, the young D-Backs were 27-16, the toast of the baseball world, and poised to lock up the National League West crown. In May. Then came 5/20, Miami, and that friggin’…
The indie filmmaker introduces the documentary Poison Wind, a chronicle she and partner Norman Patrick Brown made about the blight caused by uranium mining in the Grand Canyon and other points in the American Southwest. On her Web site, www.jennypond.com, Pond says she and Brown hope to “raise the level…
The charming, anti-cynical storyline of Julie Taymor’s odd 2007 love story gets lost behind the film’s “device”: its characters move the story along, Moulin Rouge-style, by singing plot-appropriate Beatles songs, including “Girl,” “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?”, “Helter Skelter,” “If I Fell,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Jim…
The beautifully photographed 2007 indie film from Argentina’s Lucía Puenzo is based on Sergio Bizzio’s short story “Cinismo,” about a teenager born with both male and female genitalia. Tue., Aug. 26, 6 p.m., 2008…
Kiwi actor Warbeck is the star of both of these B movies. The first is a 1981 splatterfest from horror master Lucio Falci. The second is a sex comedy from 1973. Sat., Aug. 23, 9 p.m.; Sun., Aug. 24, 5 & 9 p.m., 2008…
By Lilia Menconi By The Mighty Human Race Lincoln’s face – which I personally can’t decide is attractive or not – is one we’ve seen a million times over. In fact, I don’t think the image even registers for me anymore. At most, if I see the guy on a…
By Sarah Fenske and Amy Silverman Just when it felt like the Valley’s arts community was growing strong, it shrunk. First it was Wellington “Duke” Reiter, dean of the college of design at Arizona State University, announcing that he was headed for greener pastures (namely, the Art Institute of Chicago)…
Trinidad Escalante was a mojada. A wetback. Un illegal. Actually, I can’t prove that. But I can say with total confidence that the woman was Mexican. She was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, and eventually crossed the border. Legally or not? Quien sabe, as the Spanish say. She lived during different…
Early buzz out of Hollywood pegged Tropic Thunder, directed and co-written by star Ben Stiller, as the end-all and be-all of movie-biz parodies — a savage beast with a rough touch featuring Tom Cruise in a career-resurrecting role as bald-headed, big-gutted, foul-mouthed studio boss Les Grossman, who does the fuck-you…
Perhaps this review should begin with a disclaimer: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen’s 39th film as writer-director, will do little to endear itself to the happily-ever-after crowd or those who consider acts of infidelity punishable by impeachment. Leave it to Allen to make a romantic comedy in which all the…
You hear the same words used over and over to describe Soul Calibur IV, words like “forced.” “Jarring.” “Anachronistic.” But to me, the word that describes shoehorning Darth Vader and Yoda into a game about sentient swords, Renaissance-era combat, and plucky female martial artists is simply “desperate.” That’s not even…
I’m not a praying man. If I were, my prayers — especially those offered up after watching a performance of Nunsense, Amen at Desert Stages Theatre earlier this week — might sound something like this: “Deliver us, Lord, from funny nun musicals, especially those in which each of the characters…
This highly touted indie flick by Steve Barron explores the cold-shoulder alienation that the Land of the Free often offers to poor emigres by focusing on the relationship between an Ecuadoran dishwasher and a Chinese waitress in a downtrodden Queens, New York, diner. Presented by the church’s Oasis Film Group…
Changing Hands Bookstore’s an old hand at connecting real life and book life, reminding us that reading is part of enjoying the world. In that funkified, life-affirming tradition, the Julia Alvarez author event kicks off with a quinceañera fashion show by Azteca Wedding Plaza. After the tiaras, spangles, and big…
You follow a certain routine each Sunday: wake up at the crack of dawn, do some yoga, and eat organic eggs and ham. Then you head off to church and convene with the Lord until the starchy hold of your collar wears out. You spend the rest of the day…
When we recently attended a ballgame between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs at Chase Field, we were brutally reminded about how obnoxious Cubby fans truly are. The way they carried on, even when their team was behind. So frustrating. Maybe instead of backing a perennial loser, Cubs fans…
Tired of building an empire in Grand Theft Auto and never having those riches materialize IRL? The Street Fighter II Video Game Challenge at Bookman’s Phoenix seeks to right that wrong. Purveyors of the classic ’90s head-to-head fighting game – in which a mysterious underworld boss and dictator organize a…
While many ASU Sun Devils football fans lament the loss of Camp Tontozona – the team’s annual fall-practice home for the past 48 years – we say good riddance. Now the team may actually be good on a consistent basis. Stick with us here for a moment. The squad can…
Of the 33 designated Phoenix Points of Pride, the Wrigley Mansion is number 30. We think that’s an undersell. Peaking the meridian of its own 100-foot hillock, it’s a measure of one rich man’s love for his wife, but ask SWAY Events founder and frontman Gary Guerin, and he imagines…
At 10 a.m. on the last Wednesday of each August in Buñol, Spain, one man climbs a two-story greased pole to grab the ham on top. This signals a team to fire water cannons, which alert the thousands of people waiting in the city’s streets that it’s time to lob…
