Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Empire) Caterina in the Big City (Empire) CSI: Five-Season Pack (Paramount) Death to the Supermodels (Columbia/Tristar) Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (Columbia/Tristar) Empire (Buena Vista) Family Guy: Volume 3 (Fox) Formula 17 (Strand) The Frighteners: Director’s Cut (Universal) The Hives: Tussles in Brussels (Universal Music)…
THU 1It’s high time the Hooters girls did a little ogling of their own, and they’ll get an eyeful of topless man meat at the Arizona Bad Boys Single Elimination Boxing Tournament, which crowns Arizona’s toughest lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight hunks. The tourney features amateurs with no previous pro boxing…
There isn’t a single image of Phoenix in the “Big City: Cityscapes and Urban Life” exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum. Which is odd, seeing as how there are only a handful of cities in the country bigger than this one. Don’t we rate at least one tiny watercolor in a…
Deep down, we all want money for nothing and chicks for free. Back in 1985, when Dire Straits first revealed this eternal truth, it seemed that any goofball with a DayGlo headband could pour himself into package-hugging spandex and become a rock star. But it turned out that noodling on…
Punishment Park (New Yorker Video) This 1971 movie from director Peter Watkins could have been made yesterday, which is no doubt why it finally sees video release long after accruing cult status. Born of the filmmaker’s outrage over the Kent State killings, the war in Vietnam, and other abominations of…
For those of us who dug Rob McKittrick’s recent comedy Waiting . . . , Just Friends offers up some good news: Ryan Reynolds and Anna Faris are together again as a dysfunctional couple. He’s a slick music executive named Chris Brander, still traumatized at having gotten the “Let’s just…
Ever since its Broadway debut in 1996, Rent has generated a loyal, almost cultlike following. Showered with praise, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical touched a nerve among the young, artistic, gay, urban, and alternatively dressed people who identified as outsiders and wondered how they would make their way in the world…
A few weeks ago, Harold Ramis was sitting in a hotel conference room discussing the subtext of The Ice Harvest, his new film based on the novel by Scott Phillips and adapted by Robert Benton and Richard Russo. Ramis explained he took the project, which Benton (Nobody’s Fool, The Human…
Most movies intend to entertain or inform us, or maybe take our minds momentarily off personal problems — that bullet-riddled body in the trunk, say, or Aunt Edna’s arrest for shoplifting doughnuts. Presumably, no picture really means to make an airtight case against children. But after sitting through the witless,…
Writer and director Noah Baumbach has made three light films — one so slight (1997’s party-hopping Highball), it didn’t see release ’til five years after its completion, and even then it snuck onto video-store shelves credited to a pseudonymous writer and director. There was nothing on his filmography — not…
At first glance, Mando Rascon could easily be dismissed as just another tattoo artist. His arms are awash with numerous inked designs, half-covered by the nondescript black tee shirt he usually wears while slinging ink at No Regrets Tattoo Parlor in Tempe. But what most people wouldn’t suspect is that…
The ’80s is the decade you hate to love. Poufy-hair bands. Parachute pants. Pegged jeans. Moon boots. Jelly shoes. Linn drums. Madonna’s mysteriously vanishing mole. All that yecchy stuff you thought you’d left behind. Like, whew, glad that’s over. But in our secret hearts, we kinda dug it, didn’t we?…
SAT 11/26Jumpin’ Jesus, thought Aaron Burkey, I’m a friggin’ genius! The 35-year-old vocalist/guitarist was searching for the perfect name for his latest band, but the possibilities weren’t catchy or distasteful enough. He was considering Kiddiesnuff when he was struck by a revelation: Why not pair the Son of God with…
11/26-11/27For the average American, polo is a head-scratcher — along the lines of what people in Yemen must think of pro football. But polo is arguably the most popular sport in the world after soccer. It’s also one of the oldest, and the North Scottsdale Polo Club plays the game…
11/25-11/27Monica Long Ross admits she’s a voyeur. The playwright has been collecting other people’s home movies for years and watching them in her basement. “I remember thinking, “These are beautiful images. Someone should see these,'” says Ross. So she used the films of one particular family that she purchased at…
AVP: Alien Vs. Predator — Unrated Collector’s Edition (Fox) Cheaper by the Dozen: Baker’s Dozen Edition (Fox) 8MM 2 (Columbia/Tristar) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Buena Vista) The Honeymooners (Paramount) Keane: Strangers (Interscope) King Kong (1976) (Paramount) King Kong: Collector’s Edition (1933) (Warner Bros.) King of the Hill: Season 5 (Fox)…
Hector Ruiz is one of the most talented artists in the city. His visceral woodblock prints, woodcarvings and papier-mâch&ecute; installations show what life in America in 2005 is like for anyone who isn’t a white male. He also runs a gallery in an old auto repair shop on Grand Avenue,…
Ruben Maqueda at Museo Chicano: Ruben Maqueda brings contemporary kick to some of the work in this show of photography and folk art. His glitter-bedecked, candy-colored photos of descansos are digital age-meets-dollar store, a knowing wink at the anti-intellectualism that runs beneath much folk art. And his Day of the…
THU 24 While driving through the city to see citizens’ holiday light displays can be entertaining, it isn’t much fun when you’re stuck in traffic or prowling the block for a parking space. See a celebrated holiday display (minus the traffic hassles) at ZooLights, opening Thursday, November 24, at the…
11/25-1/22When a woman calls her guy a “minute man,” it usually spells doom for the relationship — and his ego. But for artist George Palovich, it’s a sizable compliment. Palovich practices gesture drawing, a process in which an artist produces a sketch in 30 to 60 seconds. This method was…
You’ll never find him, as Lee Grant famously uttered in The Valley of the Dolls, “posing undraped on the stage.” But director/actor/artistic director Damon Dering, who gave up life as a drag queen to co-found Nearly Naked Theatre some half-dozen years ago, gets naked in other ways. Like here, where…
Putting together a sequel to a hit videogame is tricky business. Play it safe and give people more of the same, and it ends up feeling stale. But try to innovate too much, and you dilute what made the game great to begin with. Soul Calibur III somehow manages to…
