The Michael Jackson jury has been selected, and, not unlike Jackson himself, it’s two-thirds female and mostly white. And if this jury doesn’t help convict Jackson of the child-molestation charges brought against him in Santa Barbara County, California, he’d better watch his back — because Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, Ph.D., is…
“Bwian,” I say to my pal Brian — because of the Monty Python film Life of Brian, but who I really like to call Emerald Brian since I know so many damn Brians — “who all is playing again?” “Smut Muffin, Shark Pants, Dirty Babies, and other punk-rock bands,” replies…
The novel Be Cool, written by Elmore Leonard in 1999 while the ink was still wet on the publisher’s advance, existed only because the beloved writer of seedy thrillers and Westerns knew it was guaranteed gold — the sequel to the 1991 hit novel Get Shorty that, in 1995, became…
Come this time next year, The Jacket may well occupy the slot in movie discourse that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind does now — that of the film that coulda-shoulda-woulda gotten more Oscar nominations if only it hadn’t come out so early in the year and been forgotten by…
The Pacifier, starring the human battering ram Vin Diesel as a Navy SEAL ordered to protect five kids from baddies out to steal their dead dad’s invention, was written by Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, two members of the defunct MTV comedy troupe The State. Lennon, however, is best…
If you want to know what Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior is all about, it’s pretty easy to sum up. It starts with a big fight, as a group of local villagers plays capture-the-flag in the branches of a large tree. Then there’s a brief stretch of plot, as the head…
For a day and a half, hundreds of local activists will try to shape a small corner of Arizona State University into the world they wished existed. For many who attend Local to Global Justice’s Teach-In this weekend, that vision includes driving cars powered on pure vegetable oil and eating…
I’m pacing outside the Chicago Cubs clubhouse at their winter training facility, Fitch Park in Mesa, at about 8 a.m. Beyond the foyer is a gaggle of Chicago beat writers who cover baseball’s only remaining “cursed” team. You know, the middle-aged, flabby guys who look like they’ve never touched second…
FRI 3/4 Phoenix hasn’t exactly been a hotbed of the gothic club scene. For one thing, it’s too sunny here (honest, it is!) for any “vampire” to survive; and for another, it’s too damn hot to wear black all the time — not to mention the fact that the Valley…
SAT 3/5 If your pooch’s flabby paunch is starting to rival your beer gut, it’s time to get that mutt some exercise. Take a hike with your canine companion on Saturday, March 5, when local no-kill animal organizations Paw Placement and For the Luv of Dogz, along with the Canine…
SUN 3/6 The revolution will be televised — if, that is, you happen to be at Thought Crime, 1019 North Central, on Sunday, March 6, for the Anarchist Library’s screening of the documentary The Fourth World War. Organizer Phil Freedom describes the 78-minute video as “riot porn,” since it features…
FRI 3/4 Last fall, renowned African-American choreographer Alonzo King took up residence at the White Oak Plantation in Yulee, Florida, where Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Dance Studio hosts artists for the development of new works. Apparently, the stay did King some good. His San Francisco-based LINES Ballet, founded in 1982, shows off…
THU 24 You do the math: If a one-man art exhibition featuring the work of local architect/painter Eddie Dominguez raises $5,000 for Body Positive (as Dominguez’s BP benefit show did last year), how much bank should roll in with two artists on the bill? “$10,000 would be wonderful!” says Body…
Usually, I’d be the first guy to argue that books are not punk rock. They have weight, they have those things called “words” in them, and they require attention. Kinda like kids or pets. And what fun is that when, in the almighty words of the Dwarves, all any of…
Alas, the lowly AIDS play. Originally built in the face of a crisis, AIDS plays have lingered as a subgenre of theater, one that has withered as science and society have found ways to address the crisis. There are notable exceptions: Angels in America, of course; and Larry Kramer’s The…
First, the good news. Uncharacteristically for a February release targeting African-American viewers, Diary of a Mad Black Woman is not a yuppie romantic comedy featuring Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut. Anthony Anderson and Eddie Griffin are nowhere to be seen, and despite the fact that the most memorable character is…
Bride & Prejudice is the third major film released stateside in the past few years to fuse the epic romantic musical stylings of Indian “Bollywood” movies with more Westernized, “Hollywood” elements. It’s also the most successful of them, but when the only significant competition has been The Guru and Bollywood/Hollywood,…
Before you say “Snottsdale” again to refer to the Valley’s most affluent city, check out Faking Fabulous, a television show pilot written by longtime Scottsdale residents Brian Davis and Carrie Severson (pictured). The sitcom explains some things. “It’s about twentysomethings in Scottsdale, mimicking the older generation’s success and fashion, but…
Regarding our mothers, there are certain thoughts we block out — both as kids and as adults. For instance, mom’s most intimate moments with dad. (Even putting it delicately gives us the willies.) And then there’s, frankly, the most frightening and unthinkable — until now, that is: Mom sticks a…
FRI 2/25 So many people still shudder at the “F” word: Feminism, that is. The Guerrilla Girls don’t understand that — after all, they’ve been trying to reinvent the word since 1985, adopting the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms, donning gorilla masks, and using “facts, humor and fake…
2/26-2/27 Stereotypes are an awful blight, which is why the Scottish are such an inspiringly indefinable people. Any group that counts among its sports the Hammer Throw, Weight Toss, and Standing Stone Put are on the high side of macho. Yet those same people are just as likely to be…
SAT 2/26 It seems that KTAR personality Gayle Bass really knows how to shake it. And by “it,” we mean a martini — which also, it just so happens, serves as her moneymaker, when Bass and more than a dozen other local luminaries serve as wanna-be mixologists during the Celebrity…
