Serenity, Joss Whedon’s big-screen spinoff of the 2002 TV show Firefly, which didn’t even last a dozen episodes, is already a cult phenom well before its opening. The show’s DVD boxed set lines the shelf of every fanboy who dreamed of gunslinging in space alongside preachers and prostitutes, and already…
Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs includes an infamous slice of cinematic history that’s been forever burned into our collective pop-cultural consciousness: the giddily psychotic thug Mr. Blonde hacking off the ear of a bound and gagged LAPD cop to the lighthearted strains of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.”…
Navajo artist Will Wilson knows about the pain of surviving cultural apocalypse, and how difficult it is to keep one’s traditions relevant in a strange new world. Native Americans have been struggling with this since Columbus dropped anchor in the Caribbean. Forcible removable from tribal lands, devastating epidemics, lost wars,…
TUE 10/4From Alice Cooper’s onstage beheadings to Iggy Pop’s broken-glass surfing to the robotic samplings of those Venetian-blinds-headed dudes in Devo, rock has seemingly exhausted its conceptual toy box. Or has it? You might change your mind after experiencing Quem Quaeritis and Weirdo Begeirdo, two bands from Riverside, California’s “freak-pop”…
SAT 10/1As kids, we watched hamsters running in their wheels, pedaling their li’l legs for hours, yet going nowhere. As adults, we became human hamsters on StairMaster machines, climbing countless flights of stairs, but never moving off the ground floor. Break away from the “virtual” stair climb on Saturday, October…
10/1-11/6You’ll have butterflies in your stomach as you stroll amid the myriad monarchs flitting and flapping about in Desert Botanical Garden’s Marshall Butterfly Pavilion — a lush, 2,400-square-foot closed environment built especially to house ‘flies. The interactive display is part of DBG’s second annual “Mariposa Monarca” exhibit, which is designed…
10/4-10/16First, a word about Googlewhacking for the uninitiated. Googlewhack! is an online game, the goal of which is to enter two or more unrelated words (“Googlefactors”) on Google’s Web site in an effort to turn up a single URL hit. It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially because the…
Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power (Universal) American Pie: 3 Movie Pie Pack (Universal) Beethoven: The Pooch Pack (Universal) Billy Jack: The Ultimate Collection (Ventura) Blind Melon: Live at the Metro (EMI) Bouncing Souls: Live at the Glasshouse (Fontana) Britney & Kevin: Chaotic . . . the DVD & More (Jive)…
THU 29Say amen, everybody, as Black Theatre Troupe opens its 36th season with the rousing gospel musical Amen Corner. Adapted from James Baldwin’s 1955 play The Amen Corner, the work is simultaneously serious and uplifting. It’s centered on the internal struggle of Sister Margaret Alexander, a spiritual shepherd who loses…
Thomas Keller, 24, is flat-out the best poker player in the Valley. The Stanford grad (economics, natch) has won two major poker titles, including a $5,000 buy-in tournament at the 2004 World Series of Poker, where he took home a $384,000 first prize. He’s got a book “in the works”…
Sculptor Melissa Martinez, 29, combines materials like cactus needles and concrete into stark, elegiac pieces about the natural world vanishing beneath the pavement of our eternally expanding city. The Chicago native came to the Valley a dozen years ago to get a degree in sculpture from Arizona State University. She…
Phoenix has been very, very good for 28-year-old JX3. The Power 92.3 DJ moved from Denver to Phoenix to study meteorology at Arizona State University. Eventually, this gregarious young gent began MCing local club events, where he was spotted by Power program director Bruce St. James. Four years later, the…
Aaron Homoki, 15, beat out more than 1,500 entrants from around the country in an MTV skating competition tied to a promotion for this past summer’s Lords of Dogtown picture. The northeast Phoenix teen is the polar opposite of the outlaw punks immortalized in the movie as skateboarding’s pioneers –…
Tammie Coe, 35, makes the cake. We discovered her amazing, fondant-covered creations in the dessert case at La Grande Orange, and pretty soon they were everywhere. (And coming soon to her second location at Artisan Village near Seventh Street and Roosevelt.) Tammie Coe Cakes is a tasty Phoenix phenomenon that…
Bullfighter and backpacker Carlos Manriquez, 33, is the chef and co-owner of two critically acclaimed Valley eateries: Scottsdale’s Atlas Bistro, and Mucho Gusto Taqueria and Mexican Bistro in Tempe. Raised in Mexicali, Mexico, Manriquez has a degree in dairy husbandry from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He came to Arizona…
Vivacious, witty, and easy on the eyes. Such is the appeal of Justina Duong, 31, owner of Cyclo, Chandler’s kudos-laden Vietnamese eatery, a culinary lodestone for Valley foodies. You can add smart to her list of attributes. Duong attended USC on scholarship, acquiring a degree in pharmacy. But after a…
Florida native Steven Rogers honed his nightclub skills in Manhattan, during the reign of Studio 54, and celebrity restaurateur Mr. Chow, for whom he worked. He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Truman Capote, Mick and Bianca Jagger, and Lauren Bacall, while doing lighting for Gotham clubs. Then he said…
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (Buena Vista) Anthrax Anthrology: No Hit Wonders (Sanctuary) The Batman: Season 1, Volume 2 (Warner Bros.) Battlestar Galactica: Season One (Universal) Born Into Brothels (ThinkFilm) Brothers (Universal) Cowards Bend the Knee (Zeitgeist) Divan (Zeitgeist) Inside Deep Throat (Universal) It’s All Gone Pete…
By day, Ron May is Audience Services Director for Actors Theatre — whatever that means. The rest of the time he’s a dramatic triple threat: actor (most recently as an angry young man in Stop Kiss), director (earlier this month, he helmed Nearly Naked Theatre’s Marvin’s Room) and artistic director…
Desperate Housewives: The Complete First Season (Buena Vista) ABC’s juggernaut drama is made up mostly of elements that have trickled down from HBO: black humor, self-awareness, the radical notion that women over 30 can arouse the national libido. The bonus deleted scenes don’t add much to the story, and behind-the-scenes…
While everyone in town is wetting their pants over the new Mesa Arts Center, the truly exciting news in local theater this week is taking place in a much less glamorous location. Wedged into the rehearsal space behind the main stage at the Herberger Theater Center, iTheatre Collaborative’s production of…
By conservative estimate, Tim Burton stands to rake in half a billion dollars at the box office this year, thanks to a childlike chocolate maker in mauve rubber gloves and, now, to a lively dead girl with marriage on her mind and the timid schlub who falls under her spell…
