If you’re looking for razzle-dazzle, interactivity, or anxious introspection in an art experience, don’t bother seeing ASU Art Museum’s “Carl Andre/Tim Hawkinson,” a bare-bones exhibition featuring four pieces of art by two sculptors from two different generations with two diametrically opposite views on the meaning of art. Putting these particular…
Greater Phoenix is obsessed with cars. Need proof? Take a look at that big, nasty brown cloud we suck through our collective nostrils on a daily basis. Last year, the Phoenix Art Museum caught on with “Curves of Steel,” which displayed rare and historic models (see “Nice Ride,” May 17,…
Margot at the Wedding (Paramount) Margot (Nicole Kidman, or someone who looks just like her) is a fiction writer whose tales are based, uncomfortably and unkindly, on the real-life family for whom she seems to care very little. Hence sister Pauline’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) late discovery that Margot’s a “monster”…
The Band’s Visit made headlines after being disqualified as Israel’s foreign-language submission to the 2008 Academy Awards — an ironic fate, indeed, for a movie that takes language as its very subject. The official ruling of the Oscar referees was that too much of the film’s dialogue is in English,…
Set in Salamanca, Spain, during an international counterterrorism summit, it depicts an assassination attempt on the president of the United States from the perspective of five witnesses and, in the movie’s pièce de résistance, the members of the terror cell responsible for the attack. It’s a cast of characters the…
Like most wanna-be heroes of the eager-to-please teen comedy, poor little rich boy Charlie Bartlett is charming and quirky. Too charming by half and not nearly quirky enough, as played by an artfully rumpled and wide-eyed Anton Yelchin. Blazered, briefcased, and blitzed, Charlie comes to us newly expelled from his…
The pleasures of Be Kind Rewind do not extend far beyond the promise of its premise: Jack Black, magnetized and manic (yawn), erases every single video tape in the rental store where he hangs out and has to reshoot the movies with pal Mos Def. Theirs becomes a ramshackle filmography…
Let’s just get it out right now: “Devil May Cry” is a weak-ass name for a wicked action game. But what’s in a name? In three previous outings, the brutal, hella-challenging series has consistently delivered some of the greatest hack-and-slash thrills in the genre. Sure, the setup’s as old as…
At last, there’s a reason to be glad for the crummy housing market here, and for the lack of awareness among Phoenicians about our local architectural history. Both of these misfortunes led Brad Jannenga to a formidable real estate score when he recently bought architect Ralph Haver’s old house over…
Wanna hear live salsa, merengue, and reggaeton without 1) waiting ’til 3 in the morning and 2) sweating your balls off at the club? Then check out Carnival: The Third Annual Dominican Festival. Numerous legit purveyors of the above-noted genres are scheduled to perform. Sat., Feb. 23, 11 a.m., 2008…
Why would anyone but a germaphobe pay retail when the world’s full of gently used junk? Well, the wasteful can go to Needless-Markup while we thrifty types hit the Junior League Rummage Sale – a scrap-heap nirvana brimming with secondhand treasures. Sat., Feb. 23, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., 2008…
Rough, chapped palms and brown dirt caked under fingernails. Unruly waves of sun-bleached hair reeking of dusty sweat. The soft, squeaky caress of well-worn leather. Buns in blue jeans wiggling like puppies wrestling under a blanket. Cowboy boots rhythmically thudding like a headboard against the wall. Oh, cowboys . …
Call us shallow, but why are we attracted to the Memphis-based, down-home blues band Delta Highway? Because the cover art for the band’s latest album, The Devil Had a Woman, features a waaay-hot gal with a devil-horned shadow. We hope the hot-to-trot filly shows up with the Highway when the…
Grease monkey with mesh back cap says, “Hey, dere. What kine of oil you be usin’, boi?” We say, “Uhhh . . . what?” Then we direct strange being from another planet and his/her red neck to the Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals Presented by Castrol. He/she is sure to love…
If you’ve stepped into the trippy world of Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s current southwestNET: Melinda Bergman exhibit and been wicked inspired, here’s a chance to be wicked creative with the artist herself. Check out Melinda Bergman’s Free Drawing Workshop. Art supplies will be provided. Thu., Feb. 21, 6:30 p.m.,…
For some, la frontera is a fence and a fixed concept. For others, it’s a porous membrane and a zone of dreams. American Book Award winner Benjamin Alire Sáenz drops readers just north of the physical border and into a chaotic edge in time (the year 1967) in his acclaimed…
This year’s featured filmmaker will be Krzysztof Zanussi. The five featured films are: The Constant Factor (1980) Wherever You Are (1988) The Silent Touch (1992) Life As A Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease (2000) Persona Non Grata (2005) Feb. 18-23, 7 p.m., 2008…
There’s something about the work of Jill Simonsen that has the Valley arts community and its patrons more excited than usual about a show by an out-of-towner. Maybe it’s the loneliness of her acrylic-and-pen creations depicting neglected buildings and sparse power-line-scapes. Or, quite possibly, it could be the nostalgic quality…
It’s springtime in the Valley, which means it’s Cactus League season. Uh, yeah. Of course. Okay, let’s try this again. It’s springtime in the Valley, which means that ASU Baseball is in full swing. Oh, yeah, you forgot about them? Uh, yeah. Well, you damn well shouldn’t, because the squad…
It’s springtime in the Valley, which means it’s Cactus League season. Uh, yeah. Of course. Okay, let’s try this again. It’s springtime in the Valley, which means that ASU Baseball is in full swing. Oh, yeah, you forgot about them? Uh, yeah. Well, you damn well shouldn’t, because the squad…
It’s springtime in the Valley, which means it’s Cactus League season. Uh, yeah. Of course. Okay, let’s try this again. It’s springtime in the Valley, which means that ASU Baseball is in full swing. Oh, yeah, you forgot about them? Uh, yeah. Well, you damn well shouldn’t, because the squad…
It’s been a long time since a piece of art made us choke. But there we were, mouth full of water, and – boom! Out comes the wet stuff, dousing us and our computer. We howled, then toweled off. The art in question was a merry, glazed-ceramic piece titled The…
