Modern-day “high fashion” is presented with all the trimmings — modeled by Amazons in stilettos, sent down the catwalk to a throbbing beat. It’s certainly glamorous, but it’s still ready-to-wear, available off the rack to anyone with a titanium card. While the term haute couture is often used interchangeably with…
Natalie Merchant — blues singer? Maybe it’s a little premature for that kind of label, but for those who remember Merchant solely as the socially conscious lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs, her latest project, Motherland, might be a bit of a surprise. For the first time on record, she tries…
It is difficult to imagine a more timely film than Focus; certainly, its message about intolerance resonates in a post-September 11 world in ways the filmmakers never anticipated. Adapted from Arthur Miller’s little-known 1945 novel of the same title, Focus looks at what happens to a society when basically decent…
David Grisman and Jerry Garcia met as young folk-roots fans-cum-musicians attending a Bill Monroe concert in 1964. Garcia, as you may have heard, went on to form the Grateful Dead; when the Dead began to incorporate more country elements into their music, they used mandolin ace Grisman memorably on their…
Are you ready to testify?Even if you aren’t, the Joyous Voices Band and Choir are, and by the end of Oh Holy Night: A Gospel Christmas, chances are they’ll have you up on your feet, clapping and singing along to “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” That’s just what happens…
They’re tied for second in the toughest division in the country. Their rushing game plays out on the field like a fixed-bayonet charge. And their uniforms are flat-out bitchin’. But of all the immediate and inherently cool things that the Arizona Caliente have going for them, undoubtedly the coolest is…
Only a couple of months ago, it looked as though Donald Miller had a publishing home run on his hands–a thoughtful, exhilarating, inclusive book about World War II scheduled to hit stores just as Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Band of Brothers was finishing its critically lauded run on HBO…
Whenever folks gripe about the dreary state of theater in our town — which happens as often as you’d imagine — I always point out that stage legends live and work here every day. I’m especially boastful about the fact that theater luminary Marshall Mason teaches at the local university,…
Lovely magic, this. An enchanting family classic. If you believe in magic, you’ll love Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. And if you don’t, you will, and you will. True, the hype has been a bit much. And, yes, a mad, desperate world choked with reproduction and reprobation could hardly…
It takes a nimble mind to mix light and dark, to wed humor with treachery, and in Novocaine newcomer David Atkins is not always up to the task. Neither is Steve Martin, who wants to be taken seriously while reserving the right to produce the occasional sick yuk. If you…
Consider the career options for a person with Legg-Calf Perthese disease. This rare form of arthritis affects the ball-and-socket joints of the hips, resulting in an inability to put any weight on your legs for anything but the briefest periods of time. Surely, work as a dancer and choreographer doesn’t…
The fliers for the art show “Quixotic,” which opens this Sunday, thoughtfully provide a definition of the show’s title, to aid the less-bookish of us: “adj. Extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary; impractical.” The dictionary adds a term, as well: “idealistic.” It’s those qualities that curator Matt Dickson says drive the…
An artist usually has to be stone cold dead before his work is ever shown in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Photographer Joel-Peter Witkin, however, has managed to escape the bureaucratic guillotine and now stands among the handful of living artists whose work has been deemed important enough to…
Despite its somewhat labored Actors Theatre of Phoenix production, there’s plenty to recommend Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. There’s the richness of its writing, the allure of its subject, and the astonishing range of emotions its people endure. This is the kind of play that used to be dubbed “a…
Natalie Merchant finished recording her third solo album, Motherland, on September 9, so by no means should anyone listen to the disc’s first song, “This House Is On Fire,” and think it has anything to do with hijacked airplanes, collapsed skyscrapers and the thousands buried beneath the rubble. The song…
A hazy nightclub is the typical weekend environment for Sistah Blue, the tireless leading ladies of the Valley’s blues scene. But come Sunday, the five sistahs will be doing their thing in the shade of mesquite trees and surrounded by cactuses. The show is part of the ongoing Music in…
If you’re a college freshman, don’t read this. Just grab your newfound peers and go see Richard Linklater’s new movie, Waking Life, then head off to one of those ethereal late-night dining establishments for which you’ll desperately pine once the real world gets a hold of you. Discuss. For others,…
It doesn’t take much probing beneath the thin surface to see Shallow Hal as an apologia of sorts from Bobby and Peter Farrelly. The brothers are known for making movies full of jokes about midgets, retarded people, albinos, the handicapped and so on, but always with the caveat that the…
The heroine of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s bold and bracing new comedy, Amélie, is Amélie Poulain, a doe-eyed crusader with the face of a porcelain doll and a sleek helmet of jet-black hair. From her high perch in Montmartre, where she works as a cafe waitress, Amélie secretly resolves to emancipate all…
The Disappearance of Baron Dixon, which is a local indie film — or, more evocatively, a “mockumentary” — has some fine moments. There’s the scene in which a stripped-down Barbie and Ken, a distinctly lascivious cast to their fixed plastic smiles, are blasted with the pop-pop-pop of an urban redneck’s…
There cannot be man, woman, child or beast alive who does not know that on November 6, Fox will debut its new series 24. Long before the fall season was to begin, it had already been appointed the most anticipated and beloved show of the year–by critics who had seen…
Joel and Ethan Coen’s periodic genuflections to classic Hollywood are inevitably accompanied by a knowing wink from one brother and a wry smile from the other. These devoted movie buffs’ versions of vintage gangster pictures (Miller’s Crossing) or the populist comedies of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges (The Hudsucker Proxy)…
