Whimsy. Most artistic types run from the word like they’re being tailed by a zombie with a nail gun, but folk-art master Warren Kimble is more likely to chase you with a syrup-covered stick. He’s from Vermont, you see. The Whimsical State. Land of sugar maples, quilting bees, folks who…
It’s hard to overlook the power of shyness and the greatness it sometimes engenders. Eminent fraidy cats: Albert Einstein. Abraham Lincoln. Lucille Ball! Bill Callahan’s not quite famous, but you can still add him to the list. The lo-fi pioneer, a.k.a. Smog, is a mouse who’s learned to roar —…
[Fade up from black] I’m running through Sky Harbor Airport. I drop my suitcases. Tense music pounds. Quick shots cut from uniformed guards dodging women and children on their way to Hawaii. Cut to me, cornered in Terminal 4. Guns draw. My hands go up in the air. I surrender…
Justice League: The New Frontier (Warner Bros.) Based on Darwyn Cooke’s comic-book miniseries — a masterpiece starring all of DC Comics’ major-leaguers at the dawn of their immortality during the Cold War — this animated adaptation plays stronger, faster, and further than any direct-to-DVD in recent memory. It’s a grown-up…
Words get in the way of an otherwise stellar Lost Odyssey. Lost Odyssey wants to be Microsoft’s answer to Final Fantasy — not that that’s such a good idea. Like Star Wars, Final Fantasy survives as a power brand thanks to the shining stars of its past, rather than the…
Barbie: Mariposa and Her Butterfly Friends (Universal) Comanche Moon (Sony) Day Zero (First Look) Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale (HBO) Family Affair: Season Five (MPI) The Fugitive: Season One, Volume Two (Paramount) Goya’s Ghosts (Sony) Highlander: The Source (Lionsgate) Jesse Stone: Sea Change (Sony) The Last Emperor: The Criterion…
Kissing: Here’s proof that tiny Theatre Artists Studio is a force to be reckoned with: Their latest production stars Bob Sorenson, one of the few New York stage “stars” Phoenix can claim. Sorenson, fresh from his run in Arizona Theatre Company’s The Pajama Game, is joined by Christian Miller, Maureen…
Semi-Pro’s much better than Blades of Glory, which wasn’t nearly as good as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which was a little better than Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which was almost as funny as Old School, which was better than everything else Will Ferrell had done…
“When you sleep with the king, it ceases to be a private matter.” And so it comes to pass that young Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson) must stand before her father, Sir Thomas (Mark Rylance), and her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey), and report the nitty-gritty details of having…
The premise of The Full Monty is pretty simple: Six broke, unemployed Buffalo steelworkers decide to stage a one-night-only striptease act after noting the sell-out crowds drawn by a local Chippendales act. These guys are sick of being penniless and their leader, Jerry Lukowski, is worried that his son, who…
Rock bands, Djs and skirt-chasing 5k runners invaded February’s final days.
Lace up your vinyl corset and strap on those dusty “fuck me” boots we know you have hiding in the back of your closet for Tranzylvania. The weekly goth/industrial night features drink specials, laser-light shows, and performances by DJ Dan of Anderson’s Fifth Estate and DJ noiz.fkr, who scratch hardcore…
Folded somewhere into the cramped coldness of my tiny mind is a virtual list titled Things I Hope Never to See Again. I’ve compiled this list over several decades as a reminder to myself of things I have seen before that have frightened or unnerved me. Way at the top…
The co-founder of one of Arizona’s all-time-great alt bands, The Refreshments, has carved out a very cool vanity niche for himself as a rock novelist. A wha?! Yep, the ex-‘freshment’s transformed himself into a desert-rat Nick Hornby. Edwards’ debut, Stuck Outside of Phoenix, told tales on a fictitious Phoenix musician…
Dubya’s gone, and there’s not another viable Bush on the horizon. Life is good, right? Well, the problem with victory is that she’s the twin sister of defeat, and ne’er these twins shall part. Does it really matter who gets the Oval Office in the fall? It matters not. What…
Tune in and turn on at this activist nirvana, which addresses some of the ills and issues of the times with a slate of socially conscious workshops, musical performances, and events. There’ll also be a cavalcade of speakers that includes Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia (founder of /POOR Magazine/; pictured), mural artist…
Live performers/singers give director Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 Nicole Kidman/Ewan MacGregor flick the full-on Rocky Horror Picture Show interactive/audience participation treatment at this campy affair. Fri., Feb. 29, 8 p.m.; Sat., March 1, 8 p.m., 2008…
We’re not sure how SITI Company’s going to match its first Valley performance, which took place in April 2007, but we’re confident that the troupe can and will during its Who Do You Think You Are? program. Last year, the ensemble-centric theater troupe – which is making Tempe its home…
As long as the production of hallucinogenic drugs and electronic music continues, raving will ensue. For those who dig the beats, but not the candy necklace/pacifier/glowstick culture, the Faux Show fellas present “THE M*TH*RF*CK*NG RAVE IS OVER” — an evening of live turntable action starring the notorious Wes Pentz, a.k.a…
If you’d told the first bunch of bra-burning, you-go-girl protesters that their granddaughters would pay money to run in a skirt, they would have bopped you on the head with their copies of The Feminine Mystique. But that’s exactly what you’ll see at the SkirtChaser 5K. It’s ladies first at…
You recently got into a verbal confrontation with one of your co-workers, the one who does the ol’ in-and-out with the boss to retain her job. Her behavior (along with her grossly dilated nostrils) affronts you to the point of regurgitation. Despite this, your brain went limp when she spattered…
In the land of red, white, and blue, we think our diet of breaded SPAM, hot dogs, and underage girls is up to par, but any French chef worth his fleur de sel would blubber furiously into his apron. Putain de merde! Perhaps Monsieur Jacques is right. Perhaps we should…
