Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! has more cinematic moments than any 50 comparable films – and none is more magnificent than Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman’s soaring take on Elton John’s hoary standard “Your Song.” Who but Luhrmann could take a song with a lyric like Sat on the roof And…
There are all sorts of fun facts in the press material for the 24th annual My Nana’s Salsa Challenge. Like, the Inca created salsa, it sells better than ketchup does in the U.S., it translates to “sauce” in Spanish and Italian, and . . . aw, hell. Enough reading. Give…
Check out this questionable sentence structure from the Tire Pros Monster Truck Nationals online event description: “Get ready for two days of nothing but Trucks, Trucks and more Trucks.” Ah, bad grammar and unneeded capitalization. Reminds us of our kin to the south, whose carbon copies will certainly be at…
To quote F.T. Marinetti’s Futurists Manifesto of 1909, “Standing on the world’s summit, we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!” Enter Theatre in My Basement’s XO_tic — a veneration of absurdity by playwright Chris Danowski, who joined forces with ASU’s Eva Hamilton and Louis Farber to create…
Because we’re born-and-bred Phoenicians, we reacted to the Desert Ice Bonspiel similarly to how we did when the Phoenix Coyotes first set up shop here in ’96. It went something like this: Uhhhhhhh . . . WTF? Y’all want to sweep boulders down a giant sheet of ice in this…
Most of us are familiar with the refugee-to-the-U.S. story, but how many have heard of American “refugees” high-tailing it to a Third World country? We hadn’t until checking out The Boys of Baraka, which details how four African-American kids from one of the most violent neighborhoods in Baltimore are sent…
Johnny D, a.k.a. John Dixon, has been archiving Arizona music for nearly 50 years and may well harbor the largest record collection in the Southwest, maybe even in the States. He’s been floating in the Ganges River of soul and R&B since his youth, and has kept alive the names…
If you’ve ever headed down to IKEA for lunch, you’ve probably scarfed down some knackerbrod and a steaming plate of meatballs, but we doubt you’ve encountered anything with the aftertaste of Swedish novelist Håkan Nesser, who’ll read from his bloodcurdling crime thrillers Borkmann’s Point and The Return. The series centers…
Pity us Westerners. For all the culture and entertainment we export (and expect world markets to gobble up), we’re remarkably reluctant to recognize the appeal of artists who’ve touched audiences far bigger than our own. Case in point: Asha Bhosle, the Indian singer who is beloved throughout south Asia and…
Arizona foodie Robin Miller is a chatty Kathy. It’s irksome. The cutie-pie host of the Food Network’s Quick Fix Meals With Robin Miller can talk your friggin’ ear off, though – granted — it is hard to imagine a cooking show hosted by a sullen chef with a speaking disorder…
Shemer Art Center and Museum, the art oasis located smack-dab in the middle of lovely Arcadia, opened in 1984, back when “new media” referred to anything not made exclusively with traditional art-making materials. Computers were the hot new things, and as the decade progressed, digital media rendered even formerly cutting-edge…
Three years after dissolving Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes nearly simultaneously, John “Speedo” Reis is back in the fold with a formidable new San Diego-based quartet called The Night Marchers. On the band’s debut CD, See You in Magic (released this week on Vagrant Records), Reis — collaborating…
On a recent evening, as the clock approached midnight, I created a makeshift altar with a photo of late Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon, then lit a mixture of wormwood, patchouli, vervain, and Mrs. Dash, then chanted over and over, “I summon you from the other side; come to me…
Last year, the Arizona Diamondbacks surprised most baseball minds when they locked up the NL West and fell a smidge short of a second World Series appearance. Because of that triumphant 2007, the current squad is shocking no one with its early success in ’08. However, when it comes to…
If you’ve guaranteed your season-ticketholders a playoff appearance or a complete refund, you’d better be protectin’ the ball. The Arizona Rattlers have not, and our Arena League footballers have subsequently been grinding their gears at a .500 pace. The Rattlers try, try again against the Georgia Force. Sat., April 26,…
During the early part of this decade, capturing the impoverished of the Far East was all the rage. U.S. photojournalists snapped heartbreaking images of Chinese slave laborers while Naomi Klein’s written manifestos, No Logo and the subsequent Fences and Windows, detailed corporate globalization with a focus on Asia. Basically, it…
By Joseph Golfen It’s not often that you see something truly unique. Most things in life feel familiar, more of a variation on a theme then an actual new experience. But the night Philip Huber and his marionette show performed at the Great Arizona Puppet Theater was like nothing I’d…
This weekend reads like a recipe for undiluted joy.
Lifetimes are spent trying to tackle and pin down the constant state of flux of the human mind. Even pros like Freud, Jung, and Dr. Phil have grasped only morsels. The task is arguably impossible. But painter Mark Keffer accepts the challenge in his show “The Future of Heads” at…
“Chado Ralph Rucci” at Phoenix Art Museum’s Kelly Ellman Fashion Design Gallery: If you just splurged on a ridiculously expensive piece of clothing — whatever you do — don’t wear it when you see this show. Why? By comparison, the garments on display will make you feel like a bum…
Morgan Spurlock, the daredevil documentarian who lived on Big Macs for a month and turned this exercise in “body art” into the 2004 hit Super Size Me, returns — this time expanding his horizons rather than his girth. Paraphrasing the title of a venerable computer game, Where in the World…
Jason Segel is responsible for two of the most cringe-inducing, hands-in-front-of-your-face moments in the recent history of television, both of which occurred during the sole season of NBC’s Freaks and Geeks, on which Segel played bright-eyed burnout Nick Andopolis. On the episode “I’m With the Band,” Nick imagined himself an…
