Sat 4/17 Phoenix artists Stephanie Carrico and JRC officially unpack their bags on Saturday, April 17, as Grand Avenue’s newest art venue, The Trunk Space, celebrates its grand reopening. Carrico and JRC — who previously worked The Paper Heart’s java cart (aptly called “The Paper Cup”) and ran open mike…
Last year, Playboy proclaimed Arizona State University “America’s biggest party school.” This year, students can study the anatomy of the university’s own Jaime Hammer, who graces the cover of the magazine’s annual College Girls issue on newsstands now. Inside, the comely co-ed displays her school spirit in sharp stilettos and…
The six-month intermission is over; those of you left in the lobby, wondering if Uma Thurman ever did kill Bill, may now return to your seats and unbuckle your belts and resume your gorging. Rest assured that Kill Bill Vol. 2, the final half of Quentin Tarantino’s fifth movie, offers…
Here’s a subject with which no one should ever have to grapple: Is this new version of The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane as the comic-book assassin, better than the 1989 adaptation with Dolph Lundgren? They both offer slight variations on a tale first told in a 1974 Spider-Man comic, where…
Sat 4/17 Let’s face it: Boston harbors the big ships, and we’re not exactly known for our nautical prowess. But you can help change that by embarking on a day of fun this Saturday, April 17. Cheer for your favorite mariners in what may someday be known as “Arizona’s Cup”…
Wed 4/21 “I prefer to write plays that fuck with the audience’s mind on the drive home afterwards,” says Chris Danowski, writer of ApoCalypso, Theater in My Basement’s latest surrealistic production. “I know when I see a play, I like to be bombarded with a lot of ideas, emotions and…
Thursday, April 8 Thanks to a big phat deal with rapper Bubba Sparxxx, the Yonder Mountain String Band is reaching an entirely new audience. Sparxxx’s track “Comin Round” sends a shout out to the Colorado jamgrass band, sampling its 2001 tune “To See You Coming ’round the Bend.” YMSB comes…
College theater gets a good rap next week, when Grip the Mic Tight premières at ASU’s Herberger Mainstage Theatre New Plays Festival. Mark Ebsen Zeller’s “slam poetry and hip-hop lyrical odyssey” recounts the life of Ivory, a famous white rapper bent on self-destruction. “He’s about to commit suicide when the…
4/8-4/10 It doesn’t take Andy Granatelli to see the difference between the cars on the NASCAR circuit and those of the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series. For those highbrows who scoff at NASCAR — America’s most popular spectator sport — one glance at a Grand American car will make…
ONGOING “Bonzai Bumrush” has been blowing up at Tempe’s Ichiban Japanese Restaurant for nearly two years. But those outside the local hip-hop loop likely have missed the word-of-mouth campaign spawning the weekly show’s loyal following. “We haven’t exactly done a grip of promotion for it, but we get a pretty…
4/8-4/11 “When you watch anything in performing arts,” explains Ballet Arizona’s artistic director Ib Andersen, “or you go and see a painting, it’s all about you as an individual.” His baritone voice reaches an even lower pitch as he lingers on the last “you.” Andersen can describe the abstract sets…
John Epperson is more than a man in a dress. He’s Lypsinka, a man in a dress whose off-Broadway, award-winning act (Lypsinka! Boxed Set, playing this weekend at Scottsdale Center for the Arts) is a post-modern commentary on men in dresses. And women. And homos. All of it lip-synched to…
In an era where film studios make movies based on old TV series and broadcast networks make TV movies about the making of ’70s sitcoms, it’s only natural that three of Broadway’s most recent successes — Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Producers and Hairspray — are based on big-screen favorites. Theater…
In the beginning, there was The Evil Dead, and Stephen King looked down upon it and saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let there be Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, that the message of writer-director Sam Raimi be spread across the land!” So it was written, so…
It’s a measure of continual cultural desensitization that The Girl Next Door plays like a remake of 1983’s Risky Business, yet very little of it feels risky in the slightest. Twenty years on, the notion of a high school student getting involved in the sex-for-pay business seems almost cute, rather…
Scott Tompkins isn’t the pretentious and flamboyant chef one might expect to find at a culinary festival filled with wine tastings, cooking demonstrations and black-tie galas. But that’s what’s so appealing about the Scottsdale Culinary Festival, Tompkins says. The six-day event gets cooking — and celebrates its 26th anniversary –…
4/8-4/11 Every day is Halloween for Dee Snider. Whether gender-bending as the flamboyant front man of ’80s hair-metal gods Twisted Sister, or helping create the band’s zombie-filled music video “Be Chrool to Your Scuel” (banned from MTV because it was “too gory”), Snider mixes the macabre into his masterpieces. So…
Temporary Public Art Projects at Burton Barr Central Library: Next time you stop by the Burton Barr Central Library — maybe to catch the First Fridays shuttle, maybe to pick up a good book — don’t miss two of the temporary installations from Art Detour weekend that remain on display…
Thursday, April 1 Ensuring their spots in hawg heaven, local bikers gear up for the greater good this Thursday, April 1, when the eighth annual MDA Charity Ride and Silent Auction hits the highway. The “official ride of Arizona Bike Week” benefits the Muscular Dystrophy Association — and in a…
Before Star Wars and Indiana Jones, audiences thrilled to an epic big-screen trilogy of a different sort: the tale of one righteous lawman and his big piece of wood. Based on the real-life exploits of Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser, the first Walking Tall movie (1973) made lead actor Joe Don…
If it weren’t for Chris LaMont’s and Golan Ramras’ curious desire to spoof Hollywood “it” boys Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, the Phoenix Film Festival might still be a figment of the young filmmakers’ imaginations. And movie buffs might still be sifting through “Mike’s favorite picks” at their local Blockbluster…
4/6-4/9 Artists often are criticized for throwing their berets into the socio-political arena. Claiming that artists are immersed in the idealism of happy little trees and a palette of mixed colors that get along gloriously, pundits question the legitimacy of artists’ opinions on anything outside the studio. But when the…
