Thursday, August 7 Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West and Paolo Soleri’s Cosanti spawned a legacy of world-class, cutting-edge architecture in the Valley, and “southwest NET: Architecture and Design,” at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, showcases the latest wave of Arizona design talent. It’s the first installment in the museum’s regional…
For a few minutes, at least, things don’t look so bad. Watching Ben Affleck swagger around as the thuggish title character of Gigli (“Rhymes with really,” he tells us, twice) is amusing for a bit. Affleck’s eminently qualified for the role, actually — that of a low-level hood pretending to…
The heist-film genre, especially in recent years, practices the most blatant brand of cinematic swindle. It’s built upon little more than pilfered plots and purloined characters, and the closer we inspect the goods, the more we discover that the diamonds are phony, the bills counterfeit, the treasure utterly worthless. Who…
We seem to have touched a nerve a few weeks back by making reference to a theater full of leather-clad bikers. Our guest for the evening, comedian Jimmy Danelli, casually joked about the “Hell’s Angels” in the audience, which elicited some angry letters from biker types who felt slighted. So…
Big fancy dance studios are great for students who can throw thousands of dollars at long-term contracts, but where does that leave the clumsy, cheap and commitment-phobic among us? Thanks to Rob Haines, we can swing without the bling. Through his sole proprietorship, Rhythm and Motion, Haines leads group dance…
Thursday, July 31 Looking for an excuse to hit the town in your flashiest 1970s clothes? Get wired and wild courtesy of Red Bull and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau at the Las Vegas Flashback Party on Thursday, July 31. Mickey’s Hangover throws a party of ’70s-style excess,…
Giligin’s in Scottsdale has good old-fashioned entertainment all figured out, and all of us lemmings will eventually jump into owner Mike Field’s arms — it’s just a matter of time. Giligin’s Wheel of Fear Factor game on Wednesday nights is one of the best-kept secrets in the greater Phoenix area…
Tue 8/5 It’s an odd match-up at best, a pairing of two of the greatest control freaks in guitar history: B.B. King, who measures his solos with the precision of a diamond cutter, and Jeff Beck, who is as much a sound sculptor as he is a musician. King is…
8/1-8/2 Freestyle motocross is flying higher than ever. Arguably the most outrageous of the extreme sports, fierce competition revolves around elite dirt-bike riders who take turns navigating a circuit of steep ramps, launching high into the air and performing bold stunts off each slope. Those off-the-hook tricks will draw thousands…
Sun 8/3 Praise the Lord and pass the Jack and dirty women — you’re guaranteed a hoe-down when the Reverend comes to town. The Reverend Horton Heat, Texas’ most debauched theologian and rockabilly evangelist, is hitting Tempe’s Marquee Theatre, 730 North Mill, on August 3 (on a Sunday nonetheless, so…
Sat 8/2 At the very least, they deserve to be commended for their commitment to car-pooling. Rawhide Wild West Town celebrates National Clown Week on Saturday, August 2, when 100-some clowns from across Arizona swarm in for the theme park’s 10th Annual Clown Day. From 5 to 10 p.m., the…
Fri 8/1 Novelist and playwright Hannah More said, “Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.” Given our gluttonous desire for discipline (and daiquiris!), we really can’t wait for this weekend, when Paradise Valley Community College’s Opera Workshop wraps up its…
David Wolstencroft moved from London to Los Angeles in November, and not only so he could rise each morning for a game of tennis–though there is that, and that might have been good enough. He made the trip, which is thus far temporary but may well prove permanent, for the…
It’s true: There’s nothing new under the sun. But if we’re doomed to repeat ourselves — and the summer reruns on Valley stages lately suggest that we most certainly are — then we might as well make it a repeat like Skimpies, the Terry Earp musical spoof that recently launched…
Remember how the hottest girls in high school were all bitches? Well, Vanessa Abbott is a new kind of hot girl. The Arizona State University communications major was just voted the Hottest Woman in America by HotOrNot.com, an interactive Web site where curvy curves and pointy cheekbones rule, and where…
The middle of a scorching summer seems like the worst possible time to open a coffee shop and art space. Especially since, restricted by anal Tempe business ordinances about announcing your “grand opening,” you don’t dare advertise the place until students come back to Arizona State University. But Three Roots…
I arrived at Desert Stages thinking Whatever dreck I see tonight is exactly what I deserve. And How desperate for a paycheck am I? And You know it’s summer in Phoenix when you’re driving for half an hour to see a community theater production of Cabaret. I left the theater…
You’d think he raped your mother. But all journalist Don Russell did was write an editorial about what a crummy city Phoenix is. Russell, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, was merely responding to reports that Phoenix may soon usurp Philly as the fifth largest city in the nation…
The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald asserted that “There are no second acts in American lives.” But a horse named Seabiscuit and the three disparate men who shared his success would surely disagree. Based on the best-selling nonfiction book by Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit recounts the true story of an unprepossessing, knobby-kneed…
“Simon must propose to me now,” exclaims pretty, simpleminded Rose (Rose Byrne), “before he meets somebody else or gets to know me better!” Welcome to the none-too-subtly-named Mortmain family, wherein foundering patriarch James (Bill Nighy) — for all symbolic definitions a dead writer — has been allowing his prolonged delusions…
I purposely avoided reading anything about Capturing the Friedmans until seeing the film, which has been no easy task. Andrew Jarecki’s documentary, about a Great Neck, New York, family torn asunder in the late 1980s by allegations of kiddy-porn possession and the horrific sexual abuse of numerous children, has been…
Despite a dramatic shortage of musical theater, Gilbert somehow has managed to thrive — becoming the nation’s fastest-growing city, no less. This weekend, the void at last is filled, as the city’s first year-round live theater stages its grand opening — and puts the Gilbert in Gilbert and Sullivan. Construction…
