Boom! Madden NFL rules! Need proof? Follow the EA Sports Madden online forums — 563 pages and hundreds of thousands of posts strong. The hot topic? The EA Sports Madden NFL Challenge 2007, a 17-city game fest for PS2 and Xbox 360 players who kick ass on the startlingly realistic…
When the spotty youths of Arctic Monkeys arrived on the eager-but-fickle British music scene via a digital grassroots campaign, they were heralded as the latest incarnation of The Type of Band Brits Love to Love — i.e. of northern, working-class stock (read: Oasis, The Smiths). Their first album, Whatever People…
You’re young, you’re hip, you have a Tool bumper sticker on your truck, and you have a secret. It’s a really secret secret, ´cause if your Tool-loving friends found out, you’d be a social corpse. Truth is, you really don’t like Tool that much, and have always had this mad…
Dracula: The Musical?: The question mark in this Scottsdale Desert Stages productions title screams, Careful! Hyper-clever campiness awaits you! But who can resist any show that includes a song called The Tippy, Tippy Tap of Love? Playwright Rick Abbot is taking pokes at Bram Stokers classic monster story in this…
Andre Rieu: Live in New York (Denon) Away From Her (Lionsgate) Bones: Season Two (Fox) Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (HBO) Casper Meets Wendy: Family Fun Edition (Fox) Charmed: The Final Season (Paramount) DOA: Dead or Alive (Weinstein) Ever Again (Starz) Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes — Volume Two…
We’ve heard of stage managers, but who knows exactly what they do? Alfredo Macias does, and he — the stage manager of Stray Cat Theater’s current production of A Number — attempts to enlighten us here. And to try to convince us he hangs with genies. I knew I wanted…
In Neil Jordan’s new movie, Jodie Foster plays New York talk-radio personality Erica Bain, who survives a vicious Central Park mugging and becomes an urban crusader devoted to cleaning up the city — with a Glock instead of a broom. Yes, The Brave One is that movie: the one with…
For an issue-oriented doc with activist aims, the line between hope and despair — between placating an outraged audience and calling it to action — is a fine one, indeed. Any indie auteur feels tempted to salute grassroots heroism, his own not least, although the promise of “making a difference”…
Two years after its New York Theatre Workshop debut, Caryl Churchill’s A Number is remembered primarily as the play that brought actor/playwright Sam Shepard back to the stage after 30 years. And Shepard’s return may well remain what’s most memorable about this one-act drama because, even in an excellent production…
Typically, first-person shooters are a lot like virtual shooting galleries: Great fun, yes, but not exactly thought-provoking. So it’s nice when an FPS comes along that’s trying to be something more — and even better when it actually succeeds. Sometimes you know it in the first few minutes. Take Half-Life:…
The Graduate: 40th Anniversary Edition (MGM) Fifteen years after its last home-video commemorative edition (extras from which appear here), The Graduate once more gets the bonus-laden makeover — and if ever a movie deserved its kudos, it’s Mike Nichols’ masterwork. That said, the movie is its own bonus; not since…
Diary of the Dead offers another way to say “I love zombies.” Late at night, alone in the woods, a group of film students at work on a no-budget horror film called The Death of Death are interrupted by — the death of death. Reports of animated corpses feeding on…
Even retro is retro nowadays, so the fact that Anderson’s Fifth Estate continues to exist despite everything from trout and cougar conventions to lost dale-boys wearing guyliner is testament to the nightclub’s longevity. Panic! with DJ Manchester proves the point, as you’ll see when you’re bumping to ´60s mod stirred…
Internet sites like MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps help us blaze the most expedient trails through the desert, getting us quickly to where we need to be next. But if we were to dawdle, if we were to wander down dusty trails and cluttered pathways, we might see what Tom Kiefer…
This might be the year. No, really. A few balls might bounce their way for a change. A bunch of top-tier quarterbacks might be indicted on dog-fighting charges. A plague of injuries might smite their opponents. It might snow. The world might end. If the Apocalypse does go down, you…
Excuse us while we daydream. Imagine being defended by power attorney Claudia Schiffer or watching Queen Latifah debate Hillary for a seat in the Senate. How about confessing your sins to Cheech Marin, best known for his offbeat stoner films with former partner Tommy Chong? Penance would be to sing…
Henry Rollins has always struck us as the type of guy whose intensity belies a kind of antiquated chivalry. Sure, during his Black Flag days, he regularly assaulted audience members and was generally regarded as a macho asshole by his bandmates, but we picture him as that dude with the…
There are no gimmes on the ASU Sun Devils’ ´07 schedule, but the closest they’re gonna get are the San Diego State Aztecs of the Mountain West Conference. Even so, the Devils can’t look past what should be a seriously overmatched SDSU squad, since they open Pac-10 play next week…
You don’t have to be a dim bulb to dig American Idiot Karoake, just well-lit. And how convenient! The home of this weekly croak-off offers $2.50-call specials, so 10 bucks’ll have you slurring “The Greatest Love of All” like Whitney on a binge. Tuesdays, 9:30 p.m., 2007…
Best Sunday brunch in the Valley? It’s hard to beat the Phoenician, but it’s also – gulp – hard to face the music, as it were, when that little check with the big number arrives. The tab at Johnny’s Uptown Jazz Brunch is considerably more, um, digestible, plus you get…
If you’re perpetually single because you’re too terrified and cowardly to take emotional risks, the toughest part has to be the inevitable dry spell. Could be something with the moon, undesirable pheromones, or those five pounds you gained but, lately, the chicks just aren’t digging your shit. The situation can…
Now that school is back in session, students everywhere are probably indulging their inner artist — much to the chagrin of their teachers, because it’s not notes the kids are taking. Heck, all those spankin’-new Pee Chee folders and Trapper Keepers are begging for drawings and cartoons. And why not?…
