It’s often a challenge to fairly assess a film that, by its very conception, is simply targeted to an entirely different demographic from one’s own. I am not by nature romantic, or female; for those who are, it may have to suffice that the mostly double-X-chromosomed crowd watching The Notebook…
The reception area outside of Leah Landrum-Taylor’s office smells of burnt toast. Perhaps a file clerk in the House of Representatives has scorched an English muffin this morning — or maybe someone is trying to intimidate Representative Landrum-Taylor with a subtle warning. If so, they’re wasting their time, because Landrum-Taylor…
Carrie Bloomston is an accomplished artist, a graduate of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. Her beautiful paintings have left random, empty frames of green-gray-purple-peach paint on the walls of her Tempe studio, where Bloomston stands, on a recent Friday morning, flipping carefully through a drawer of older work…
The real Melvin Van Peebles shows up just once in Baadasssss!, a fictionalized account of his making of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song in 1971, and it’s at the film’s end; he sits silent, grinning, clutching his ever-present cigar. But he’s all over this movie, in which his son Mario plays…
Everyone loves tigers, save perhaps for those actually being mauled to death by them. Men like ’em because they’re wild beasts; women like ’em cuz they’re big kitty-cats. So whatever your point of interest, Two Brothers, starring a pair of tigers named Kumal and Sangha, is the perfect date movie…
Black and teal confetti litters the floor of America West Arena as the Arizona Rattlers are mobbed by the press, having just outlasted the Colorado Crush, 45-41, in the semifinals of the Arena Football League playoffs. After an afternoon-long war of attrition, you’d expect the boys to retreat to the…
There’s a big difference between being laughable and being laugh-out-loud funny. Talking to Nick Tarr about his career as a comic, however, blurs the line of distinction. Tarr, famous (or infamous — again, it depends on one’s perspective) for his recurring role as “Joe Arizona” in the gaming initiative commercials…
6/24-7/9 Local artist Karen Fiorito knows she’s on someone’s — or some government agency’s — list. The question, though, isn’t which one, but, rather, how many? “That’s what my friends have told me,” the recent ASU fine arts grad says, laughing, as she hovers around downtown’s Studio LoDo. “According to…
Sat 6/26 They’re fast, they’re tough, they’re sexy as hell. And they hold grudges. For a really long time. By now you’ve heard of the Arizona Roller Derby and the infamous rivalry between the two teams that started it all: the Smash Squad and the Bruisers. On Saturday, June 26,…
6/25-6/26 Scott Sanders, owner of the Paper Heart Gallery, has his own method of bitch-slapping culture-deprived Valley residents. This time it’s with “Haz Mat,” the Heart’s latest installment of experimental music, theater and video art. The two-night gig, which promises to open your mind — and then screw with it…
6/24-6/27 Games children play often have very grown-up connotations. Playing “doctor” is an easy way for kindergartners to cop a feel, and, apparently, puppetry is a way for grown-ups to play with dolls. From Thursday, June 24, through Sunday, June 27, “Puppets for Everyone: The Pacific Southwest Regional Puppet Festival”…
When iTheatre Collaborative debuted last season, it did so with a pledge to produce unconventional, seldom-seen plays. The company kept that promise, at first, with estimable productions of Underneath the Lintel, Bee-Luther-Hatchee, and a holiday pageant that was both hip and festive. But iTheatre seems to have already forgotten its…
THU 17 Some like it hot, but we’re bound to lose our cool — swilling Mylanta martinis in the corner — at “Spicy: Summer SMoCA Nights” this Thursday, June 17. Club culture and high culture collide in a “high-energy evening of cutting-edge style and entertainment” at the Scottsdale Museum of…
Sat 6/19 The scorching hot days of summer really get our libidos going. Unfortunately, the trouble of finding someone to stick to the sheets with has left us about to dry up. If the batteries in your “electric toothbrush” have run out, maybe it’s time to find a new way…
Last October, Jeanne Clark’s Chihuahua, Gucci, vanished into thin air. She’s posted Lost Dog fliers all over town, and spent hundreds on ads pleading for the safe return of her teeny pet — all to no avail. Not even a trip to a local psychic turned up any clues. Jeanne…
David Mamet’s love of the rhythms of American speech is the hallmark of his work. His people speak in a repetitive, rat-a-tat cadence, always overlapping and usually taking two conversational steps backward for each step forward. Mamet’s is a language filled with expletives — there are reportedly more than a…
Getting stranded at snowbound O’Hare for the night is one thing. You call home, maybe knock down a couple of martinis, then grab a blanket. A century ago, being quarantined at Ellis Island for eight months because you were, say, a part-time anarchist from Campobasso with a big mustache and…
You might think that with the technological advances in moviemaking since 1956, this new version of Around the World in 80 Days would at least look better than its predecessor did. You could not be faulted for believing you’d be wowed by the gadgets of inventor Phileas Fogg, the whirligigs…
It’s a sign that a nation may be losing its collective mind when it grants a nutty hack like Quentin Tarantino an exalted title like Officer of Arts and Letters, but there’s France for ya. Whether Gallic pop culture is rousingly progressive or embarrassingly adolescent is anyone’s call, but few…
Nate Adams blasts the engine of his Yamaha YZ 250 motorbike to nearly 10,000 RPMs, assaulting spectators with a machine-gun-like staccato and fresh dirt, which explodes from underneath his tires. He launches himself into a death-defying back flip, wraps his legs around his arms above the handlebars in midair, and…
Robert Shields is an easy target for snarky journos and arts critics. Fact is, it’s almost too easy to crack on a guy who found his 15 minutes back in the 1970s by donning white face paint and a too-tight black body suit, miming his way to fame and fortune…
