Fri 10/1 You can get yourself clean and enjoy a good meal, but art at the YMCA? Sure enough, on Friday, October 1, the Lincoln Family Downtown YMCA, 350 North First Avenue, hosts its own First Friday event. Its Teen Center Art Gallery showcases paintings and murals by inner-city teenagers…
9/30-10/3 With everything Irish happening on campus this week, you’d think ASU president Michael Crow is tryin’ to get lucky. The ASU Herberger Mainstage Theatre production of Dancing at Lughnasa wraps up at the Paul V. Galvin Playhouse, 51 East 10th Street in Tempe, Thursday, September 30, through Sunday, October…
Shark Tale is an animated film, though after you see it you might wonder whether the term is intended as oxymoronic. Put simply, it has no life in it at all. Not even the kids roped into an afternoon preview screening seemed terribly interested. Perhaps they’ve grown tired of computer-made…
Revolutionary idolatry is an odd business. Just ask unruly pop singer Stew, of the unruly pop group the Negro Problem. On his Naked Dutch Painter album, the melodic rebel dares to challenge a very sacred image. “Don’t you wish there was, like, another picture of Che Guevara?” he inquires. “Like,…
David Cross isn’t so enthusiastic about his choices in November’s presidential election. “[George W.] Bush is dishonest. He’s a liar. He’s duplicitous. He’s a fake, phony populist,” says Cross, 40-year-old co-star of Fox’s Arrested Development, and former star of HBO’s mid-1990s cult comedy Mr. Show With Bob and David. “At…
College buds. Talented actors. Bright futures headed in the same direction, surely. Before long, Quincy Bernstine and Jennifer Morris might be referred to as “Quennifer,” provided their roles in the off-Broadway hit Matt and Ben, which comes to the Scottsdale Center for the Arts on Wednesday, October 6, serves as…
Sun 10/3 Remember learning how to drive in an empty parking lot behind the Quik Mart? Yeah, so does the neighborhood’s now-three-legged dog. While the drivers competing in the NASCAR Double Header at Phoenix International Raceway, 125 South Avondale Boulevard, on Sunday, October 3, possess more refined skills behind the…
Tue 10/5 Over-hyped pretentious film festivals of the world, listen up: You Cannes all just go to hell and watch us Sundance on your graves. Make way for the upstart film fanatics of the Gadabout Film Festival, who visit the Trunk Space, 1506 Grand Avenue, on Tuesday, October 5, and…
It was only a matter of time before Hollywood capitalized on the sympathy and admiration that have enveloped the nation’s firefighters since 9/11, and here we are. Jay Russell’s action-packed, flame-broiled Ladder 49 is an all-out valentine to the firehouse fraternity that might never have gotten to the screen were…
Say hello to a pop cinema masterpiece. This new Japanese import opens with a massive thud not unlike Godzilla’s footfall, and its cinematic legacy stretches back almost as far. It’s got crafty samurai action, hilarious bits of business, insightful observations into the human condition, and geysers of kitschy computer-generated blood…
The world is bursting with people who would just as soon jack off as get laid, so it’s no surprise that, for some folks, pretend awards programs are just as valuable as those that actually honor talent and achievement. For people who’ve spent their whole lives fantasizing about giving a…
THU 23 Talk about pulling some strings. Organizers rounded up some rocking raffle prizes for this Thursday’s “DIY Benefit Show” for the American Diabetes Association. The biggest booty: a Gibson Les Paul, courtesy of Guitar Center of Scottsdale, and a Fender acoustic guitar starter pack — a guitar, strap, gig…
In A.D. 2004, as the five remaining members of the legendary Monty Python comedy troupe lie in coffins in a Vanity Fair spread to jeer at their own deaths, it’s really nice to have them back together commanding the big screen. Behold anew their wonderfully wiggy Monty Python’s Life of…
Rick Schroder’s character takes a hell of a pounding in his new movie. In his role as the film’s writer, director and producer, Schroder had to roll with the punches as well. Black Cloud started to form four years ago when Schroder — the kid from Silver Spoons, and now…
Sun 9/26 For the athletes competing in the fifth annual Firebird Triathlon, this Sunday, September 26, the waters of Firebird Lake may present a formidable obstacle. After all, whole flotillas of speedboats have raced through its waters over the years, possibly leaving gallons of petroleum (not to mention whatever bodily…
9/24-9/26 Austin Powers can switch himself off, because when it comes to spy send-ups, there was none better than Get Smart. Maxwell Smart (a.k.a. Agent 86) never needed pinkie-biting evil doctors or midget clones to get the big laughs, and we’ll bet you yearned for your very own shoe phone…
What good is sitting alone in your room when you can go watch the folks at Phoenix Theatre flog another famous musical to death? Cabaret is PT’s latest awkward attempt to look like a professional theater company without offering anything inventive or genuine. Art usually loses out over artifice at…
Some of the best performances of the year can be found in Mean Creek, a small independent film that marks the auspicious feature debut of 31-year-old writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes. An ensemble drama with a relatively unknown cast, the film looks at six kids and what happens when an innocent…
“Ash is feeling a little bit under the weather, so I’ll be taking charge.” So says Shaun (Simon Pegg) to his valiant crew of appliance salespeople, but if you don’t get the real meaning, you’re probably not part of the target audience for Shaun of the Dead. Ash, for the…
The very best thing about A Dirty Shame, a giddy sex farce from John Waters, is the credits. What’s not to love about a list of characters that includes “Sylvia Stickles,” “Marge the Neuter,” “Fat Fuck Frank,” “Cow Patty” and “Tire Lick Boy”? The soundtrack, too, bears comic fruit, with…
In this year of political movies, in which agendas serve as plots, comes the unlikeliest candidate of them all, The Forgotten, in which the climactic moment hinges upon the belief that a child’s life begins at conception and not in the delivery room. To explain any further would reveal too…
Wanna keep on rockin’ in the free world? Then take an active role in shaping that freedom, urges Krist Novoselic, who knows a little something about rocking — and democracy. Best known as Nirvana’s bassist, Novoselic talks music and politics in his first book, Of Grunge and Government: Let’s Fix…
