3/5-3/7 This weekend’s Art Detour marks the unveiling of the multifaceted Cone Gallery — as do coffee, champagne and live music. Its main show features the self-described “abstract surrealism” of Kathleen D. Cone, gallery curator, CEO and CFO. Meanwhile, Cone’s La Bohemian Museum & Collectibles, which keeps regular business hours…
FRI 3/5 Comedian George Carlin wrote in his 1991 book Napalm & Silly Putty, “In Rome today, Pope John Paul removed his little hat and revealed he has a small map of Tombstone, Arizona, tattooed on his head.” We can only hope for another Arizona mention in his upcoming book,…
The Mars Exploration Rovers represent the most ambitious Mars study undertaken to date, and (surprise!) our very own Arizona State University is more involved in the mission (with four space scientists playing major roles) than any other university in the country. Scott Nowicki, a graduate research associate at the ASU…
Arizona State University’s production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard is director Marshall Mason’s 180th theater production and, unfortunately, his last for the university. Mason will retire his post as ASU theater professor at the end of this semester and will leave the Valley, thus turning us back into what…
This Jew has spent several hours in the past week reading all four Gospels, as well as various supplementary (and often inflammatory) texts, upon which Mel Gibson based his The Passion of the Christ. I’ve read the interpretations of scholars, the apologias of popes and the damnations of zealots. I’ve…
This is not a good movie. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights is, in fact, a bad movie. The script bleeds one cliché after another, the female lead can’t fire up the heat necessary for her role, and the plot resolves nearly every conflict it introduces within minutes. Worse, even as the…
Ballerinas kept Edgar Degas on his toes. The famed artist may have been an unapologetic misogynist, but women — the most feminine of dancers, in fact — served as his most potent muse. More than half of the Impressionist’s pastel and oil works draw upon dance, as does his most…
Thursday, February 26 Three intertwining stories of terminally ill patients and their loved ones make up the compelling drama of The Shadowbox, presented by Phoenix College Thursday, February 26, through Saturday, February 28. “Even though the setting is a hospice of sorts, the play is neither morbid nor melancholy, but…
These aren’t your usual bunch of tossers. No, the muscular men and women who’ll descend on the Valley this weekend for the 40th Annual Highland Games won’t be heaving heavy objects just for the hell of it — they’ll be doing it for Gaelic guts ‘n’ glory, and maybe some…
2/28-2/29 Just say kampai on Saturday, February 28, when the Matsuri Festival toasts 20 years of celebrating Japanese culture in downtown. A traditional Japanese sake keg cracking ceremony launches the weekend of festivities, followed by a lively procession of lion dancers and drummers parading its way throughout the park. Entertainment…
3/1-3/7 Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick — the oldest American man ever to finish among the top four men’s tennis players in the world, and the youngest American man ever to finish number one — are coming to volley in the Valley this week. But forget about Andre versus Andy…
Sun 2/29 Face it — the invite to Sunday’s 76th Academy Awards wasn’t lost in the mail. So instead of spending a king’s ransom on Vera Wang couture or an Armani tux in hopes of sneaking in, better go with Plan B. The Oscar Night America Gala at the Ritz-Carlton…
2/26-2/29 A saucy mix of horny and corny, the British sex farce drips with mishaps, missteps and mistaken identity — think Three’s Company with Cockney accents, gov’nor. The genre inspires Noises Off, Michael Frayn’s play-within-a-play about the troubles and tensions dogging a touring theater troupe. Plots, props and pants fall…
In a better world, Alicia Sutton would appear on stage constantly. She’d be handed her Actors’ Equity card, given her choice of roles, and would perform in a different production each month for one of our 70-odd local theater companies. She’d do Hedvig in The Wild Duck, and Nickie in…
Albert Maysles, with brother David, made two different films about two different rock-and-roll bands five years apart, but to this day he can’t think of one without immediately thinking of the other. The first he was shooting 40 years ago this very day, more or less: The Beatles were on…
Seldom over the course of a relatively storied career has Gene Hackman garnered sustained laughter in films billed as comedies. He’s wondrous at playing virtuous or wicked, paternal or pissed-off, but never quite comfortable in the role of comedian; he may be an actor of uncommon range, able to communicate…
It’s clear by now that Meg Ryan, the bubbling sweetheart of half a dozen romantic comedies, means to bring new substance and seriousness to the latest phase of her career. Witness the lonely New York English teacher she played in last year’s brainy slasher flick In the Cut: In no…
No gratuitous violence, no blatant sex, minimal profanity. Must be a very short film festival. Passing the big-screen screening process at The Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is no simple task. Shel Pierson and his wife, Phyllis, who co-founded the fest nine years ago, devour a steady diet of movies, passing…
Thursday, February 19 Every weekend, news junkies across the country get an entertaining reward for their devotion to the headlines with National Public Radio’s quiz show Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, which dares listeners and a panel of experts to discern real news from fake incidents. On…
“Ask your doctor if this poem is right for you,” Bill Campana begins innocently enough. “I took Levitra.” You can imagine what follows. Forget Browning and Byron — here are their professional descendants. Campana and poets like him are the sometimes funny, sometimes ribald, sometimes passionate participants in Mesa’s poetry…
Sat 2/21 Your boys don’t brake for art? Bring ’em along for the rides. Chandler’s “Saturday Music and Art in the Park” boasts a new attraction this go-around: the inaugural Classic Car and Hot Rod Show. Some 130 cars are set to roll in to Historic Downtown Chandler for the…
Sat 2/21 Who nuzzles our necks and sits all day on the couch with us when we’re sad? Dogs do. Pam Gaber knows the healing power of a pooch, so she started Gabriel’s Angels to take Fido’s fidelity to those who need it most. Volunteer Angels pad into Valley hospitals,…
