I hate dogs. It’s one of several things about me that people point to as proof that I’m not a human being. But I have my reasons for recoiling at the sight (and smell!) of nearly every canine I’ve ever come across. Like the fact that an especially large, brutish…
Linda Pollack’s not getting older, dammit. She’s getting bluer. Pollack has founded a local chapter of the Blue Thong Society, a group of fiftyish women who want more from middle age than just crow’s-feet and expanding waistlines. She swears the blue underwear isn’t mandatory, but apparently cocktailing and a fondness…
Lisa Albinger, 30, creates stirring depictions of relationships, womanhood, and growing up with scoliosis, using cotton swabs and paper towels instead of the quintessential brush. She’s Wisconsin-born and a practicing Wiccan, and a majority of her work depicts “her girls” being led on cathartic journeys by rabbit guides. She’s shown…
Have you ever looked into onrushing traffic and imagined how much damage you would cause with a simple crank of the steering wheel? If so, FlatOut 2 is the racing game for you. The latest entry in a genre best described as Evel Knievel meets NASCAR, FlatOut 2 lets you…
Arrested Development: Season Three (Fox) The final collection of Arrested Development discs feels sadly incomplete: only 13 episodes this time, the result of Fox’s inability to attract viewers to one of TV’s greatest comedies and the network’s unwillingness to give it a full farewell. But none of that diminishes the…
Akeelah and the Bee (Lions Gate) American Gun (IFC) The Castle of Cagliostro (Manga) Desperate Housewives: Season Two (Buena Vista) Stephen King’s Desperation (Lions Gate) Friends With Money (Sony) Iron Island (Kino) Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (Paramount) Lonesome Jim (IFC) Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (Warner Bros.)…
The Apartment (Lions Gate) The Bill Cosby Show: Season One (Shout! Factory) The Blue Light (Pathfinder) Conviction: The Complete Series (Universal) Dances With Wolves: Extended Cut (MGM) Film Geek (First Run) House, M.D.: Season Two (Universal) Invasion: The Complete Series (Warner Bros.) Just My Luck (Fox) The Maid (Tartan) On…
He’s played everything from a foppish French baron (in Les Liaisons Dangereuses) to a seven-foot-tall singing whisk (in Beauty and the Beast). These days, while he waits to go on as a gay baseball player in Take Me Out, Joe Kremer is learning to play Texas Hold ‘Em and recalling…
One of the weakest and most ridiculous aspects of popular culture is its narcissistic now-ness. There’s often no then or later, and without past experience or the messy knowledge of life, modern entertainment media often seem poached in a neurotic teenage brainpan, entranced with their own ignorant tunnel vision. A…
Low, which is to say no, expectations can be a wonderful thing; expect nothing, and maybe you’ll get that little outta-nowhere sumpin-sumpin that turns an otherwise unfulfilling occurrence into a vaguely rewarding experience. It’s not like Invincible boasts the most promising of credentials: a first-time filmmaker (Ericson Core, the cinematographer…
If, at this remove, we can imagine Vienna in the late 1890s, we behold a great imperial capital in ferment. Gustav Mahler is not only reinventing the harmonic structure of serious music, he is getting his head seriously shrunk by Sigmund Freud. Arnold Schoenberg takes painting lessons from the eroticist…
Snakes on a Plane represents the ideal of contemporary major-studio filmmaking — which is to say, major-studio marketing. Who needs word-of-mouth screenings or critics when you can sell the four-word pitch as written on a napkin? It points to a future that takes all the guesswork out of moviegoing. A…
It’s not unfathomable that Richard Greenberg’s exuberantly chatty Take Me Out won all the big-deal theater awards in 2003. Greenberg’s supple use of language and powerful characterizations make this an entertaining, if not especially enlightening, mediation on oft-trod themes. Fine actors will certainly continue to bring to this play better…
For most people, the words “role-playing game” conjure images of sweaty Dungeons & Dragons-obsessed weirdos, wearing cloaks and screaming “Lightning bolt!” at each other. But even non-RPG players gave the genre a try when Final Fantasy VII debuted back in 1997. The beautiful graphics and heart-tugging story made it an…
Veronica Mars: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros.) Any concept along the lines of “high school hottie solves crimes” is bound to make for watchable TV, but who would have expected this? Equal parts 90210 teen soap, murder mystery, and comedy, Veronica Mars pulls you in with its sharp writing,…
The Hispanick Zone: This comedy, written and directed by Teatro Bravo founder Guillermo Reyes, launches the company’s new season. Set in Arizona in 2006 and told in sketch comedy format, it depicts the world (and the Legislature) as ruled by humorless people. Reyes spoofs assimilation, deportation, and the hotties of…
Irresistible music and community-building art unite when StraightNoChaser Presents: “one,” a hip-happening evening of danceable grooves and visual art. Two rooms — the main downstairs area with internationally renowned DJs Joe DiPadova and Santos spinning organic dub, gritty soul, and booty-shakin’ Afro-beat; and the intimate upstairs showcasing downtempo, underground disco,…
Humanity’s not looking so good these days. With war overseas, terrorism pushing our borders and serial killers in our midst, maintaining much faith in my fellow human beings proves to be a constant struggle. What does it mean to be human? What separates us from beast? If you need some…
The grainy images are both utterly mundane and deeply disturbing. They flicker past silently; the soundtrack to this short movie is long lost. Yet there’s a soundless wail of horror behind these simple scenes — of a group of men erecting a low, tarpaper-covered building; a woman hanging laundry; a…
Jason Lethcoe’s book Amazing Adventures From Zoom’s Academy doesn’t particularly wow the reader with its prose, but the concept is solid — basically, Harry Potter with superheroes rather than wizards. The heroine, Summer Jones, is an awkward 13-year-old tomboy with a goofy father named Jasper who likes to tinker with…
After nearly three decades at the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Shelley Cohn departed for civilian life last year. During her stay — most of which was spent as the agency’s executive director — she presided over the commission’s arts programs, protecting us from a future with no ongoing arts…
Like a real war, Chromehounds involves long stretches of tedium, occasionally broken up by a few moments of sheer terror. After what feels like weeks of ponderous marching from point A to point B in your titular “Hound” — a walking tank — combat erupts. The fighting is fast and…
