Andrea Beasley-Brown, better known to film fans as the Midnite Movie Mamacita, is the Valley’s guru of grindhouse films, B movies, and underground cinema. She’s currently the programming director at Madcap Theaters, and also serves as director of horror programming for Phoenix Comicon and festival director of the International Horror…
There’s a doll in downtown Phoenix that’s older than the United States.Her wax skin is clear and smooth, her features soft and vibrant. Her shiny blond hair is human (each follicle was applied by hand) and her white cloth dress has no tatters or stains. The 300-year-old doll is the…
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It’s the weekend of Phoenix Comicon, and if the colorful crowd that showed up for “Preview Night” on Thursday, May 27 is any indication, there will be hordes of costumed geeks in the area for the next three days. The doors to the Phoenix Convention Center opened around 5 p.m.,…
Vampire sisters, hunchbacks and kick-ass old people. It must be time for a Comicon filmfest. In addition to its anime, costuming, and comics programming, Phoenix Comicon’s offering three days of films at the Phoenix Convention Center, May 27 through 30. There’s a ton to choose from — more than 42…
Aaron Forrester bends over a table in his father’s garage, furiously sanding a shin guard. Beads of sweat trickle down his forehead and gather atop his thick goggles. Surrounded only by the whir of the sanding machine and the smell of Bondo, he’s unblinking in his focus, even though the…
When he’s not doing the daily grind at his IBM day-job, Greg Fennel’s knee-deep in anime and manga programming for the Phoenix Comicon this weekend.Fennel’s been an anime (Japanese cartoons) and manga (Japanese comics) costumer for 10 years — he blames Speed Racer and Robotech, which sucked him in during…
Gilbert resident Jen LaFortune is an attorney by day, but on nights and weekends, she’s Commanding Officer of the Dune Sea Garrison (DSG) — the Phoenix branch of the 501st stormtrooper costuming group.She’s also a member of the Imperial Service Organization (ISO), the ’40s pin-up girl themed club that’s hosting…
Starting today and continuing every day this the week, we’ll be previewing the upcoming Phoenix Comicon at Phoenix Convention Center, May 27 through 30. Today, we bring you a Q&A with Comics Programming Director, Ed Harris. Ed Harris has been reading and collecting comics since the 8th grade, when he…
Fair Trade Cafe is full of flavor, and we’re not talking about the handmade soaps they sell or the local artwork that adorns the walls. We’re talking literal flavors — Fair Trade Cafe stocks more than a dozen different kinds of syrup, and the baristas will happily make a java…
The Hohokam people mysteriously disappeared in the 15th century, but glimpses into their quiet, farming-based lives can be still be seen in the middle of metropolitan Phoenix, at the Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park. Occupying 3.24 acres just off of Washington Street and east of Sky Harbor Airport, the…
North Phoenix has blossomed as its own pocket of Valley culture, including car shows, the Scottsdale art walks — lucky for us, the “North Phoenix Blog has got it covered. The blog provides the normal rundown of events, stores, and art galleries in the north Valley, but we really love…
The phrase “eat dirt” has never been complimentary, but there sure are some tasty-looking rocks at the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum on Washington Street. The museum’s “Banquet of Rocks” display features more than a dozen rock and mineral dishes that look startlingly edible, from a steak (quartz and jasper)…
Forget birdhouses — starting Wednesday, workshops at the Phoenix Bat Cave can show you how to build a bat house in your own front lawn. But if the idea of hosting bats is a little much, the Bat Cave near 40th Street and Camelback Road also has “Bat Viewing Workshops”…
Grab your pens and comic collections — Todd McFarlane will be ready to sign anything at the Phoenix Comicon while fans can view a screening of films based on his characters. Considering the longtime Ahwatukee resident’s immense body of work, he’s going to be very busy. McFarlane fans can line…
The latest in a line of cheap, super-sugary energy drinks, Vegasfuel provides a quick kick and a bit of dehydration. The packaging includes a tag line that says, “Put a little Vegas in you,” and the effects Vegasfuel are a lot like its namesake city — a quick sensory rush,…
In the name of journalistic research, renowned sports writer Rick Reilly played rock-paper-scissors, sat in a sweltering sauna, and dropped a ferret down his pants. The Sports Illustrated columnist, ESPN host, and 11-time National Sportswriter of the Year was on a globe-trotting quest to find the world’s most absurd sporting…
Playwright and actor Kim Porter knows a thing or two about writing for the stage. The Texas-born Arizona resident’s yarns have been staged at theaters on both coasts and garnered multiple awards. (Most recently, she received two L.A. Drama Critics awards and three L.A. Weekly awards for the Los Angeles…
Not everybody can own a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, but you can probably get your clunker over to the Buddy Stubbs Premier Motorcycle Museum. The 3,000 square-foot facility houses more than a hundred years of motorcycle history, from 1915-era Harleys and 1920s model Triumphs to limited edition BMW bikes and vintage Indians. There…
One can’t help but chuckle at Igor and the Red Elvises’ appropriation of cheesy American culture — the colorful bow-tie tuxedos, the lopsided pompadours, singer Igor Yuzov’s lounge-lizard panache. The band’s flair for fusing Russian folk music with American surf, rockabilly, and even disco led to interesting concoctions like “I…
Singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins defies a cut-and-dried definition. Influenced by everybody from the Violent Femmes and James Taylor to contemporaries like the Indigo Girls (whose co-founder, Amy Ray, attended Clarkston High School in Georgia with Mullins), the folk rocker maintains a homey pop vibe throughout his albums but doesn’t feel compelled…
On the outskirts of Central Phoenix, quirky old Grand Avenue careens west toward Glendale and Wickenburg at a 45-degree angle, as it has done for almost 85 years. A lot has come and gone along this arterial road, but many signs of Phoenix past remain. Literally. The stretch of Grand…
