If we know you like we think we do, you like to get drunk and sing your ass off. Don’t be embarrassed; we saw you push that mousy guy with the Mariah Carey octave off the karaoke machine and throw the party into gear with your rendition of “Thriller,” replete…
It’s just not right to watch Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 paean to the big screen on a little one, even if it’s a big-screen little one, so take this opportunity to see the fabulous flick on the scale for which it was intended. Wed., Sept. 3, 6:30 p.m., 2008…
Masked Mexican wrestling. Children welcome. Ooooo-kaaaay. It’s safe to say that the fiends who’ll be grappling at the Lucha Libre Mexicana bash won’t be staging a south-of-the-border High School Musical. Rather, they’ll be trying to rip off each other’s máscaras (masks), which is a pretty emasculating thing to a luchador…
Special guests at this year’s sci-fi/fantasy con include MaryJanice Davidson (the Undead/Betsy the Vampire series), Greg Weisman of Gargoyles fame (pictured), Anthony Alongi (Jennifer Scales), and the Skiffytown League of Heroes. Fri., Aug. 29; Sat., Aug. 30; Sun., Aug. 31, 2008…
Wanna turn your brain off for a couple of hours? The touring production of the over-the-top Broadway revival oughtta do the trick. The show, which features a book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, music by Marvin Hamlisch, and lyrics by Edward Kleban, is the ultimate backstage-tuner romp, featuring songs…
Portugal. The Man likes spontaneity. They also like random punctuation in the middle of their name. You could even say the Alaska-based quartet has a knack for doing things ass-backwards. For example: Even though the band writes music while on the road and works out the parameters of some its…
By Lilia Menconi I’ve always given myself a big, fat pat on the back for being somewhat self-aware. Usually, I can admit to my flaws without too much of a problem. So here’s a little confession: I grew up in the suburbs and I’m a consumer. I can’t help it…
For the downright dazzling opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, world-famous film director Zhang Yimou utilized the form of a basic painting scroll as the quintessential backdrop for his techno-savvy take on 5,000 years of Chinese cultural history. As it unfurled, Zhang’s mammoth 95-by-381-foot roll became the perfect prop…
The Rocker bears the decidedly unmistakable odor of something made in 1983 and left on the shelf a good 25 years. That isn’t to suggest that it’s fetid product in need of tossing out: Parts of it are genuinely delightful, and Rainn Wilson doesn’t squander his first feature-film starring role…
Some say the world will end in fire; some — like Werner Herzog — say ice. Flying in the face of global warming, this profoundly idiosyncratic filmmaker leads an expedition, alternately comic and visionary, to the heart of coldness. Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World chronicles his trip…
In its final 10 minutes, Hamlet 2 is little more than chaos, noise, and nonsense, and those are 10 perfectly enjoyable minutes. It’s hard to knock any sequence that climaxes with a musical number titled “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus,” done up nice and Grease-y. Problem is, the 80 or so…
The term is “shovel-ware,” a gaming phrase used to describe the heaps of worthless, quickly cranked out titles currently choking the Nintendo Wii. Even EA Games, a major developer, sinks to the Wii’s level with the recently announced “Celebrity Sports Showdown” — a mini-game compilation starring grotesquely caricatured pseudo-celebs competing…
For months, I thought it was a Chinese restaurant. Good, I’d think as I drove each morning past the grand, pagoda-like monster being erected at 29th Avenue and Northern. The spring rolls at Golden Dragon suck. Then the crosses went up. Oh, I thought. A monastery. Or a Buddhist temple!…
The Valley resident and host of the TV show Smart Spaces: Inside & Out discusses his green-living creation, the “holistic home” he calls the Urban Farm. Mon., Aug. 25, 7 p.m., 2008…
See our state bird, the cactus wren, and other arid-land avians in action at this rise-and-shine bonanza for bird lovers. Mondays, 7 a.m. Starts: May 5. Continues through Aug. 31, 2008…
Okay, there’ll be, like, stuff on sale and stuff, but this ain’t your granny’s tent sale. G-dawg definitely wouldn’t dig the cool noise that’ll be echoing through the Mill Avenue District, and it’s pretty much a given she wouldn’t shell out for the chain’s groovy slackerwear. In addition to a…
The best music has often been created under the most oppressive conditions. Slave spirituals in the 1800s. Martha and the Vandellas’ Civil Rights Era rallying cry “Dancing in the Streets.” The compositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and many others during the Third Reich. Check out an evening of tunes, poetry, and…
Photojournalist Alison Wright nearly died in a grisly 2000 bus accident in Laos, but what didn’t kill her apparently made her stronger. Wright spent the next seven years exploring Asia and the tenets of Buddhism, performing feats of personal courage, and “learning to breathe,” a term that inspired the title…
HDTV. The Internet. Video games. Text messaging. They’re all distractions, man. For real, let it all go, head outside, and remember what life was like, pre-stimuli, for at least a couple of hours. Impossible? We say rubbish to that. So do the bloke and blokette who will lead the Backpacker…
For many of you, the last time you heard reggae was when you toked up some shitty pot in your first Tempe apartment as an undergrad. You and your buddies wasted the afternoon away while wearing ASU T-shirts and Umbros, eating Gus’ pizza, and listening to your sweet three-disc CD…
Ceramicists always wonder why they’re left in the dust while painters and sculptors get the glory. Let’s face it, clay boy, no one’s gonna care about your pot unless they can smoke it. Maybe that’s why Midwestern artists Teri Frame, Alex Hibbitt, and Liz Zacher decided to combine mixed-media and…
Reading the press release for Dearly Departed, a play in the first week of its run at Chyro Arts Venue, comparisons to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying are inevitable. However, instead of hicks transporting a corpse in a pine-box coffin, the David Bottrell/Jesse Jones comedy follows the emotional journeys…
