It takes us forever to keyboard-pick these words each week, so when we hear about the career trajectory of individuals more talented, creative, and ambitious than we, we’re immediately struck by depression and lowered feelings of self-worth. But this is America, after all. You work hard, you get ahead. You…
Amid feverish preparations for the Arizona Derby Dames League Championship, a few of the rollergirls speak to a cautiously adoring public:Sally Whacker of the Brutal Beauties: “We’re good enough friends that we can really mess with each other, and the crowd loves it.”Ginger Mortis, Coffin Draggers: “We’re like the bad…
Local indie champion No Festival Required plumbed its archives and let its already lengthy hair down for this short-film fest, featuring 11 jewels featuring subjects ranging from a nudist farmer to zombie teenage angst. Fri., Nov. 16, 8 p.m., 2007…
Sculptor Aureleo Rosano may be self-taught, but he could teach a lot of other sculptors a thing or two. Many of his steel-and-glass mosaics have the look of oversize jewelry moderne, and a number are designed as wall hangings. Lovely. Nov. 15-Dec. 17, 2007…
The comely lasses of the local burlesque troupe blow out the candles with help from San Francisco chanteuse Kitten on the Keys (pictured), a saucy cabaret performer who plays ukulele and accordion in addition to piano. An anonymous online wag had this to say about Ms. Kitty: “Kitten on the…
The show features teensy-weensy works — none larger than 12″ x 12″ — in various media by artists from Arizona and around the country, including Effie Bouras, Dayvid LeMmon, Barbara Love Newport, Byron Carrick, Monica Chevalier, Chris Day, and Aleta Lynch. A reception is slated for 4 to 8 p.m…
A performance by the cast of Artists’ Theatre Project’s Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical follows the screening of the original — the all-time best — soft-core cheerleader-exploitation flick. Another soft-core fave, Sugar Cookies, wraps up the evening with an 11 p.m. start time. Fri., Nov. 16, 9 p.m., 2007…
Artist and instructor Solana Yuko Halada’s works focus, she says, “on simplicity, beauty, and a mind-body connection that follows the Zen precepts that greatness in brushwork can only be achieved through mushin, or ‘no-mind.'”. Nov. 26-30, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., 2007…
This T-Day feast’s the best in town. Period. And a menu from a previous year (this one’s is not yet finalized) illustrates why: baby lamb chops with a mint glaze, grilled salmon with a roasted red pepper coulis, and that old standby — turkey — gussied up with cranberry chutney…
The founder/president of the controversial organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reads from and signs her latest book, Let’s Have a Dog Party! Tue., Nov. 20, 7 p.m., 2007…
The ever-supercool classical-music series, featuring moonlighting members of the Phoenix Symphony, strikes again in this concert held in conjunction with Legend City’s “Chaos Theory” exhibit. The program includes works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Grebentschikov. Seating is limited. Sat., Nov. 17, 8 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 18, 8 p.m., 2007…
There are those of us who will do almost anything to hear someone sing “Alfie,” arguably the most famous and most-often-recorded of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s many hundreds of pop standards. We (who also don’t mind hearing “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” “Baby It’s You,” and the…
What does Tempe have in common with Reykjavik, Iceland, St. Petersburg, Russia, and Manchester, United Kingdom? The 700IS Reindeerland: International Experimental Film and Video Festival, a well-traveled celluloid fest that will screen anime, shorts, documentary, and experimental fare. Tue., Nov. 27, 7-9:30 p.m., 2007…
You think your marriage stinks. At 18, this former fundamentalist Mormon from Colorado City says she was forced to marry a stalwart polygamist nearly 40 years her elder — and to bear eight children by the geezer — before escaping from the grasp of the creepy Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints…
The gentle documentary, which took the Best Film award at the 2006 Phoenix Film Festival, was the brain child of Andrew Jenks, a then 19-year-old filmmaker who decided to live among the residents of an old-folks home and get their take on life, and occasionally death. Mon., Nov. 26, 7…
“Two Ladies,” indeed! Cabaret director Phillip Fazio apparently has a thing for impersonating the fairer sex. Here, the former child actor fesses up to an affection for Maggie Smith and a likeness to Bridget Jones, and cops to preteen stints in full-on drag and a secret desire to be the…
Although he plays a college professor in his latest film, Robert Redford was, by his own admission, never much of a student, consistently more interested in what was going on outside the classroom window than inside. But there’s one moment from Redford’s academic past that burns brightly in his memory…
Jonathan Demme, who directed Tom Hanks to an Oscar as the AIDS-afflicted lawyer in Philadelphia, may be the most well-meaning filmmaker in Hollywood. Jimmy Carter, winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human…
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is less Sidney Lumet’s comeback than his resurrection. Three years after being presented a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, the 83-year-old director comes forth with a violent family melodrama that is his strongest movie in at least two decades. Robustly directed from Kelly Masterson’s bear-trap screenplay…
“There’s a reason I’ve had some good pictures and other guys will never have good pictures,” Sidney Lumet says matter-of-factly on a recent afternoon in his New York office — four cramped white walls, unadorned by awards or other memorabilia, on the top floor of the Ansonia building, where Enrico…
“Hold still.” That’s what the hunters say to the hunted in the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men. The first time we hear it, it’s the out-of-work Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) whispering optimistically to the antelope he spies through his rifle sight while perched on the crest…
Banking on the career choices of Vince Vaughn garners increasingly erratic returns, which is ironic, given that he has finally settled on (or surrendered to) a consistent onscreen persona: his own bad self. Uneasy from the beginning, Vaughn avoided the superstardom that seemed within reach after Swingers by trying on…
