Tiger Woods snubs the Valley every year. At least budding superstar Michelle Wie wanted to be here. The 18-year-old received an exemption from the Safeway International that would have allowed her to compete as a pro for the first time in Arizona, but an injury nixed that idea. Oh, well…
While the Willo Historic District receives mad accolades and recognition, little ol’ Coronado – loosely bordered by Virginia Avenue to the north, McDowell Road to the south, Seventh Street to the west, and 14th Street to the east – sits there in all of its cute and quiet glory. To…
There’s a dusty adage that says your likelihood of scoring with the opposite sex increases if you’re in a band or a movie. Double score if you’re in a movie about being in a band. If that’s true, that makes our very own instrument-wielding all-stars Andrew Jackson Jihad, Haunted Cologne,…
You might think that Alternative Race Day means lesbians in wheelchairs, but at Turf Paradise on Saturday, March 29, there’ll be a veritable Island of Dr. Moreau on the sandy racetrack, with ostriches, camels, mules, and pigs squealing out in place of the racehorses. Speaking of animals, The Mayor, Dave…
Chuck Taylor All-Stars, those venerable Converse sneakers, were once the cutting edge in athletic shoes. They’ve long since given way to NASA-level contraptions in competition arenas. Similarly, Jean Cocteau’s contributions to art and performance might seem a little, well, quaint. Backwards Theatre, a new avenue for experimental theater from preeminent…
It’d be easy to talk about a Canadian-sponsored film festival and slip in the requisite “Take off, hoser” and “Drink more Molson, eh?” comments, à la toque-wearing Bob and Doug McKenzie. But while we might chortle and giggle like a third-grader over a fart joke, the fleeting laughter’s over in…
It’s easy to scoff at Valley suburbs — as if Phoenix proper is the condensation of all things urban and art — but we’d generally rather gag than travel anywhere requiring entry onto a Loop and drive-bys of four Target Greatlands. However, glorious weather is the great equalizer. Things you…
Arizona Cactus League baseball is one of the most anticipated sports happenings in town. But around this time in March, we’re way more jazzed about practice ball ending and the Arizona Diamondbacks beginning regular-season play. That’s why we say enough already with miniature ballyards featuring used-up hurlers running foul-pole laps…
Outside of blaxploitation and Spike Lee, motion pictures made by black filmmakers don’t get much love. That changes (at least in this town) when acclaimed African-American filmmakers visit for the seventh annual Arizona Black Film Showcase. Workshops take place at Phoenix Convention Center, 111 North Third Street, while the films…
What does it take to get into the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament these days? How about a fifth-place finish in the stacked Pac-10? In the case of the ASU Sun Devils, the answer would be “false.” What about a sweep of your in-state rival? In the case of the ASU…
The hip cats who put together the Theonix Arts Showcase know how to throw a slammin’ shindig. 4 real dough. On Friday, March 28, the center of the cool universe takes place at Hollywood Alley, with performances by What Laura Says Thinks and Feels, Rocketline, The Market, and H.P.R. as…
The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust, the newest, Internet-only album by Saul Williams, may not be what fans expect from the accomplished writer, star of the 1998 movie Slam, and poet/musician. It’s more gritty, electronic-based, and, at times, even more pissed-off. For that, we can thank Trent Reznor of…
What do Oscar-winning screenwriters do between films? They make little plays, apparently. One such diminutive dramedy is John Patrick Shanley’s The Dreamer Examines His Pillow, an oddball skewering of infidelity, spousal abuse, and the vagaries of love. Shanley, who won an Academy Award for his Moonstruck script in 1987, pits…
Who else thinks that Baxter the Bobcat needs to be neutered with extreme prejudice? Well, on Saturday, March 29, the Arizona Diamondbacks host the defending Mexican League champion Sultanes de Monterrey in a one-game exhibition at Chase Field, 401 East Jefferson Street. It’s an interesting match-up in and of itself,…
Life in the 15th century was fairly disgusting with those excrement-splattered streets, plagues galore, and life expectancy of about 40 years. The idea behind the Arizona Renaissance Festival & Artisan Marketplace? Clean things up and make it hip — as hip as something like a Ren fest can be, at…
Fans of the Mike Nichols film Closer may be disappointed with the superior stage version on which it’s based, now playing at ChyroArts Venue. The 2004 movie, which starred Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman, featured a watered-down ending with no twist, and its key plot differences…
It’s 1955, and there’s plenty of work to be had building the new interstate in Klan country. One hitch: The young black laborers are mysteriously vanishing or, somewhat more ominously, being found embedded in concrete. These are just some of the happenings in the Black Theatre Troupe-staged East Texas Hot…
“Radical Mod is a test for me and a test for Scottsdale and a test for the low rider guys that are coming here in a sense that we’re all a freakish components in the element that we’re in,” Cohen said.
Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz at Bentley Gallery: Think of snow globes and you’re reminded of second-rate antique stores, Grandma’s creepy attic, and tourist gift shops. But the works by Martin and Muñoz embrace this item’s nostalgia and shed any cheesiness. Beautifully crafted snow globes rest on pedestals in the…
At the crosswalk the other day, I noticed something peeking out from the usual pasting of fliers on the light pole in front of me. It looked like an address label. In a nondescript typeface was printed: “OUT OF IRAQ” — a plea unlikely to persuade any policymakers who happened…
Rare is the star vehicle that is as poorly matched to its star as Drillbit Taylor, which casts Owen Wilson as a homeless Army deserter and con man, able to fool people into believing he’s both a substitute teacher and a master of hand-to-hand combat. It’s a part that requires…
Sometimes it’s the terrible ideas — say, a TV show about nothing, or stirring corn into your mashed potatoes — that turn out to be genius. Super Smash Bros. landed on the Nintendo 64 nearly 10 years ago, kicking off a concept that initially sounded nauseating: “lovable Nintendo characters in…
