The Boys Are Back

Directors Series: Stanley Kubrick (Warner Bros.) Most of the old Kubrick DVDs were crap: full-screen editions with poor pictures and virtually no special features. This set makes up for them with 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut (hey, who farted?), all looking great…

New Times‘ top DVD picks scheduled for release this week

The Adventures of Aquaman (Warner Bros.) The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume One (Paramount) Battleship Potemkin (Kino) Breathless: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Commune (First Run) The Company (Sony) Fantastic Planet (Accent Cinema) Home of the Brave (MGM) Hostel: Director’s Cut (Sony) Hostel: Part II (Sony) Into Great Silence (Zeitgeist)…

((Stereo)) Lab

Mono — bad. You don’t want to catch it, and you certainly don’t wanna listen to it. So head on over to Casa Blanca for the ((stereo)) Halloween Funk, Soul, and Reggae Fest featuring vinyl-shredding by DJs Legacy, Cypriano, and Gabo. Sun., Oct. 28, 9 p.m., 2007…

Grass Heroes

The thought of punks wielding clubs sounds vaguely unsettling, but it should be more like comic relief at the AZPunk Golf Tournament. The self-fundraiser for AZPunk.com is a nine-hole competition in which, says AZPunk’s Micah Elliott, “we can drink on the course, plus maybe get our fat, pasty-skinned punk asses…

March Madness

It’s not terribly surprising that 95 percent of the Phoenix hipster population wants to move to Portland. In the great Oregon city, you can still smoke inside the bars, plus it’s chock-full of mom-and-pop businesses, good-looking twentysomethings, and a music scene crazy enough to spawn a traveling Gypsy-marching-band-sideshow-circus-extravaganza like the…

Xanaxadu

The constant strain of city life seems to breed an infestation of mental disorders and strange habits. We’re riddled with anxiety, obsessed with cleanliness, or so depressed we can’t even scrape ourselves out of bed. And if there is a disorder that’s the opposite of agoraphobia, the folks who frequent…

The Wrath of Zod

Like Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Kevin J. Anderson was first published in his teens, and his prolific success is enviable. Now Anderson will sign and discuss what Superman fans have been clamoring for: The Last Days of Krypton, a book that subtly retraces the courtship of Jor-El…

A Hard Day’s Day

No Nigerian ringers allowed at this year’s Javelina Jundred marathon, okay? All others should don their comfiest shoes and get ready for the annual 30-hour, 100-mile race, which starts at the Pemberton Trailhead. The event promoters have wisely added an “I Wimped Out” 100K option this year. That would be…

Tag Team

Looking for a way to hide the fact that you’re secretly shopping for a new wardrobe? Sunset Clothing Xchange has figured out a stealthy way to disguise our Ed Hardy habit with its Four Seasons Graffiti Art Show. Paintings that match your couch? So ´98. Up your street cred with…

Bad to the Bones

Halloween carnival at the Y, Wicked Night at the Wrigley. Hmm, what to do? Discerning boys and ghouls choose the Mansion, which consistently throws the Valley’s best bashes, including this highfalutin costume ball. It’ll set you back a little more than the Y — tix cost $50 — but at…

Fang Shui

With every passing Halloween, we find it more and more challenging to come up with original and fresh costume ideas. Instead of beautiful flowing fabric interpretations, the pseudo-holiday turns into an offend-a-thon, where folks sport Elliott Smith stabbed-in-the-chest motifs or silk-and-cotton metaphors for genitalia. For a more sophisticated and arresting…

The Cold and the Beautiful

Fun fact No. 1: Iceland was recently named the fourth-happiest nation on Earth. Fun fact No. 2: Some Icelanders, descended from Vikings and Norsemen, still believe in elves or are unwilling to rule out their existence. It makes perfect sense, then, that Icelanders are making some of the most adventurous…

Que Shiraz Shiraz

Way back in the ’80s, when real men didn’t eat quiche, wine was relegated to fancy restaurants and snooty folks who watched PBS. But thanks to the pioneering efforts of “Two Buck Chuck,” wine with dinner can now be had for the cost of an extra-large Slurpee, and Charles Shaw…

Psychopath of Least Resistance

Despite the rosy glow of hindsight, there’ve always been sickos and psychos. Caligula. Vlad the Impaler. Jack the Ripper. Winnie Ruth Judd. But — as you can see from the abbreviated checklist — they used to come along at relatively hospitable intervals. The 1960s and ´70s saw a sicko/psycho boom,…

Speaking in Tongue-Twisters

War isn’t only hell, it’s also layered with ironies. Take the tiny hunk of Japanese rock invaded by the U.S. during the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima, where an iconic image of WWII in the Pacific emerged: Joe Rosenthal’s photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. One of the clinchers…

Nice Set of Choppers

No one’s yet been caught doing 350 mph on that unofficial race track known as the Loop 101 in north Scottsdale, but it won’t be long once the world’s fastest motorcycle — currently a prototype — hits the market. See other protos, along with dirts, cruisers, and customs, at the…

Creature Discomforts

Once you get past all the faux arachnids plastered on the outside walls and wade through the infinite spider webs that have snared several inflatable sex dolls, you’re ready to check out the salacious and sinister works at the “Monsters Menagerie” show. Check out fantastical works in a variety of…

Meat Me at the Fair

We’ve always tried to like — and spell — fancy-ass French food like fishyswass and keesh, but our palate hails from Texas, and our culinary hero is Homer Simpson. Thus, we’ll be at the front of the line when the SPAMMOBILE pulls into the Arizona State Fairgrounds to hand out…

10,000 Maniacs

As if the beautiful people who haunt Axis/Radius and next-door neighbor Suede don’t already wear enough makeup, the 85251 clubs are offering their clientele the chance to really pour on the pancake at the “Ghost Ball” Block Party. More than 10,000 lost souls are expected to attend. Sat., Oct. 27,…

Remember the Alamodome

Eighty-two regular-season contests and an indeterminate number of playoff games from now, we’ll see if the Phoenix Suns can finally corral those damnable San Antonio Spurs and become the first Suns team to win an NBA championship — or one of the best ones that didn’t. First they have to…

Hell to the Chiefs

Those show-biz types — writers, performers, carnies — they just plain make up a lot of stuff. Shameful! So when Citrus Valley Playhouse creator Brian Nissen mentions LOCUBTZPIVVL (Lack of Connection und Belonging to Ze Place in Vich Ve Live) Syndrome — a sociological phenomenon first observed by Dr. Dieter…

Slay Belle

If your Netflix queue is woefully lacking in Russian constructivist takes on American expressionist high-technophobic allegories, here’s ASU Theatre to the rescue with Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. The play is based on the true story of Ruth Snyder, the calculating killer who conspired to murder her husband in 1927 — providing…