As big as the Star Wars expanded universe is, few people can say that they have actually had the opportunity to work on a project related to the beloved sci-fi franchise. Even fewer still can say that they got to work on bringing George Lucas’ original vision to life. Comics…
Elizabeth Maria Naranjo is a petite woman with long, black hair that today she’s pulled back, save for a few wisps that frame her face. She’s personable, but not bubbly, and passionate without being overbearing. She alternates between sips of water and coffee and she is, as she’ll later admit,…
It’s always nice when Phoenix gets recognized by a national art organization, but it’s even nicer when the recognition comes with a little bit of dough. Earlier this week, Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation became one of 55 organizations chosen to receive a grant from ArtPlace, a well-supported association dedicated…
Phoenix is brimming with creativity. And every other year, we put the spotlight on 100 of the city’s creative forces. Leading up to the release of this year’s Best of Phoenix issue, we’re profiling 100 more. Welcome to the 2014 edition of 100 Creatives. Up today: 63. Jeremy Hamman. Jeremy…
Cabaret They say life is a cabaret, my friend, but in this modern time, is that really the case? Really, life is a rave, my tripping buddy; or a death metal concert, my headbanger; or wasted hours on Facebook, my followers. Yet, for some, it seems the idea of a…
Things are really shaping up in Mesa. The volunteer-run “hackerspace” HeatSync Labs, which operates as a communal gathering place for engineers, artists, and creators and the Valley, just received the modern day builder’s dream gift: a 3D carving machine…
Arizona has a wealth of things to enjoy for outdoorsy types, and for those who enjoy skateboarding are no exception. There are more than 20 various skateparks and other great spots to hit around the Valley such as The Wedge and Desert West. But during summer, it’s just not as…
On this week’s episode of the Voice Film Club podcast, Voice film critics Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek, along with L.A. Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson, discuss rom-com Begin Again (2:26), starring the always-interesting Mark Ruffalo. They also talk about the biting rom-com parody They Came Together (15:47), which might…
Over his career, self-proclaimed “natural-born freak” Rush Hicks has performed or trained with the Coney Island Sideshow and Squidling Brother Circus, placing him among the elite of the world’s circus and sideshow performers. In the past year alone, Hicks has logged almost 15,000 miles of travel all over the world…
Courting Disaster is Jackalope Ranch’s weekly column of dating horror stories, observations, how-tos, and more by Katie Johnson. Names of ex-boyfriends, past hookups, and bad blind dates have been changed to protect the guilty. There are lot of things out there in the dating ether that either men or women…
Phoenix is brimming with creativity. And every other year, we put the spotlight on 100 of the city’s creative forces. Leading up to the release of this year’s Best of Phoenix issue, we’re profiling 100 more. Welcome to the 2014 edition of 100 Creatives. Up today: 64. Mo Neuharth. Mo…
The nuanced nightlifer is accustomed to dancing at the bar, in the bar, and on the bar. But this summer Sway Events is inviting the pub crawling crowd to join the LGBT community once again as it hosts Dancing with the Bars through Sunday, July 27…
“I was too creeped out by people to go to camp as a child,” says Wendy Raisanen, curator of exhibitions and collections for Scottsdale Public Art. “But if I’d had a camp like Camp Dreamtree, I might have been tempted.” Raisanen, who grew up in Scottsdale, is talking about the…
Believe it or not, during Transformers: Age of Extinction, Michael Bay’s fourth rattling of the toy box, I felt one moment of near transcendence. Three-fourths of the way through the punishing 165-minute runtime — and 15 minutes after my seatmate took off her 3-D glasses in exhaustion — my brain…
Wait, where do we know you from? We have a feeling actress Jenny Mollen is asked that a lot. And it’s certainly not for her lack of being places. You might’ve spotted her on the latest season of Girls (as an actress in a Broadway play), and she played Nina…
The flood of tweets, Instagrams, and twonks when people go out make us long for the age when nightlife was on the QT and cool clubs required sly patrons to drop a password at the door. The Pop-Up Speakeasy: A Return to Cattleman’s Bar takes a stroll into the Prohibition…
This week marks the second annual “Most of” edition of Lit Lounge, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s outside-the-box monthly speaker series. “Most of” is more of a “best of,” featuring prominent national and local performers like Annabelle Gurwitch, Beth Lapides, and local playwright Kim Porter who share secrets and…
It’s kind of happy-sad, like watching a kid you knew as a toddler graduate from high school: Chris Evans, seemingly destined to be a boy forever, is now officially a grownup. In Bong Joon-ho’s futuristic snowbummer Snowpiercer, the Korean director’s first English-language film, Evans plays the leader of a group…
Mark Ruffalo’s great gift, besides those scruffy good looks and that prickish, hungover charisma, is capturing the essence of the guy who’s spinning toward a crash but trying to angle himself back. His greatest performance, in Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me, one of the best films of the…
If a toddler tried to re-create the mystifying behavior of adults, it would look a lot like Paul Haggis’ Third Person, a drama in which grownups scream and cry and kiss for reasons that are confounding even to those who understand speech. The film follows a handful of couples or,…
Earth to Echo is a slender kiddie flick about a quartet of preteens and their palm-sized alien pal that’s at once bland, well-intentioned, and utterly terrifying about the mental development of modern children. As in the most honest kids films, our 5-foot heroes admit to being isolated, unhappy, and cowed…
To call Roger Ebert one of the great populist film critics is to damn him with faint praise. Though he took pride in working for the scrappier of the two Chicago dailies, the Sun-Times, and though we do have him to thank — or curse — for popularizing the thumbs…
