The early reviews for Beyond the Sea, the Bobby Darin biopic on which Kevin Spacey did everything save for feeding the crew and sweeping the set, have been so hateful that a latecomer to the bashing bash is tempted to head straight for the spiked eggnog and let the man…
SAT 1/1 The year 2005 is only mere hours away, so you’d better get cracking on some resolutions quick, lest your better half will think you’re slacking in self-improvement skills. They already guilted you into snuffing out the cigarettes, so consider whipping your fat ass into shape. Plus, you’ve somehow…
I’ve been thinking about making some New Year’s resolutions. Normally I don’t bother; it’s too easy to give in to the bad habits I’ve honed to perfection, and let’s face it: Ice cream will always taste better than salad, and since I work at home and my spouse is gone…
Despite the reverence given to it in nearly every other corner of the world, the sport of soccer has never quite found its footing within the cynical hearts of the American sporting public. Here we don’t even call the sport by its proper name — football — reserving that term…
When New Year’s Eve comes a-knockin’, this town’s a-rockin’. With almost every style of bash going down, it’s hard to find some wallflowerin’ excuse to stay home watching Regis Philbin filling in for the ailing Dick Clark. Even Indo-Pakistani folks can kick it like Kali and welcome the new year…
1/3 – 1/28 Our couch-potato habits are so ingrained that it takes a drill sergeant to get us into shape. Too bad we recoil at the thought of a military haircut. Ladies, on the other hand, can sign up for the Phoenix Adventure Women’s Boot Camp and still keep their…
FRI 12/31 It’s New Year’s Eve and you’ve got at least two options: Join the hordes (via ample television coverage) in NYC’s Times Square to watch the ball drop; or ditch the sofa and ring in the new year by dropping a beat. For pleasure-seeking funkophiles in favor of option…
12/30- 2/12 Paul and Corrie just got married. She’s beautiful, and he’s a hotshot lawyer who just won his first case, a whopping 6-cent settlement. But their life as newlyweds quickly digresses into one long, hilarious argument in Neil Simon’s classic comedy Barefoot in the Park, opening Thursday, December 30,…
THU 23 Just how many stockings can you stuff into a bikini — which happens to be clinging to one heavenly body at the time? We’re not sure if that’s what the organizers of the Xtreme Xmas Bash have in mind on Thursday, December 23, at the Big Fish Pub,…
Normally, I’m a pretty boring motherfucker when it comes to New Year’s celebrations. Having an extreme aversion to the sort of massive crowds that congregate at Tempe’s Fiesta Bowl Block Party and Scottsdale’s stepsister copycat event, I usually like to park myself in front of CNN and watch the hourly…
If your idea of a fun New Year’s Eve consists of sitting at home in front of the TV and doing shots of Tequila Rose while watching the ball drop in Times Square, consider this: Those poor East Coast bastards are freezing their buns off, and there are plenty of…
The parade of real-life figures strolling into the googolplex has been endless this year: Look, there’s Jamie Foxx as musical Mount Rushmore Ray Charles, Johnny Depp as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, Kevin Spacey as forgotten teeny-popper Bobby Darin, Liam Neeson as sexologist Alfred Kinsey, Kevin Kline as standards composer…
THU 12/23 What better way to get in the holiday spirit than to bang your noggin with a bunch of heavy-metal maniacs? You already may have missed out on the 12 Bands of Christmas show and the Merry Fucking Xmas Bash earlier this month at the Clubhouse in Tempe, but…
He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake. And if that doesn’t completely freak you out, how about this: He spends all his time with elves, has access to an army of men who look exactly like him, and he can bend time and space to suit…
By all accounts, the only living creatures who’ve never taken in a stage production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera are Osama bin Laden and Uncle Elmer’s deaf hound dog Bart — which means that everyone else on the planet has an opinion about how Joel Schumacher’s…
When your movie gets riotous laughter out of endless utterances of the word “Focker,” it doesn’t have to try very hard. So it’s no surprise that much of Meet the Fockers, the inevitable sequel to the 2000 hit Meet the Parents, barely breaks a sweat. When in doubt, after all,…
The critic who takes notes during The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou will ultimately fill a notepad only with scribbled details: “All the crewmen wear red stocking caps with their tuxedos,” “some names of Zissou’s movies: The Battling Eels of Antibes, Shadow Creatures of the Lurisia Archipelago, Island Cats!,” “one…
What is “Sussudio”? Is it: (a) the title of a Phil Collins song; (b) the title of an Ol’ Dirty Bastard song; (c) the title of a philosophical pop culture performance-art exhibition; or (d) all of the above? The correct answer is (d). Collins first used the word in his…
Chris Bailey’s suffering a double whammy this holiday season. Not only is he spending it in the Iraqi desert, but he’s missing one hell of a party (in his honor, no less) this week at Suede nightclub in Scottsdale. Yeah, we know Bailey’s got more pressing issues to deal with:…
12/31 Appearances often are deceiving. You’d probably expect a public performance of Aesop’s fables to be some infantile feel-good production aimed solely at children. Just like the sheep that mistook the wolf as one of their flock, you’d be dead wrong. Gerry Cullity and Adele Dodds, two members of the…
TUE 12/28 These Beavers are anything but sloppy. Sure, Oregon State started the 2004 season by posting a dismal 1-4 record (including getting walloped 49-7 by Cal-Berkeley in October), but head coach Mike Riley turned the team’s fortunes around, and OSU won five of the next six and clinched a…
12/24-12/25 Can’t afford a plane ticket to go home for the holidays? Don’t end up alone in your crummy apartment with a lukewarm TV dinner when you can surround yourself with a flock of female impersonators at Pookie’s Cafe, 4540 North Seventh Street, where drag queens perform their usual Vegas-style…
