Robrt Pela didn’t intend to permanently open a gallery when he first used the space on McDowell and 5th Avenue to host The Joe and Jan Show this past March. But the veteran Phoenix New Times critic and contributor was encouraged by others who, like himself, recognized a need for…
Tempe’s Broadmor Elementary is home to some seriously creative students and some very cool parents who’ve joined forces for the past five years to produce Hoodstock. Think indie music and arts festival meets school fundraising event and you’re on the path to what’s been an annual showcase of emerging talent…
Attention, Phoenix brainiacs. You have some lectures to attend. Start taking notes — here are five events that’ll up your IQ this month. “The Mother of Ruin: Queen Morgause in the Arthurian Legend” @ Changing Hands Get the D.L. on Arthurian force of evil Morgause, a.k.a. The Mother of Ruin,…
After perusing the prolific amounts of art, jewelry, and clothing this weekend at First Friday, take a break and escape the heat to catch a controversially classic book’s second film adaptation by director Michael Radford. Bookmans presents the latest feature in its Banned Books on Film series, with the polarizing…
Comic book geeks of Metro Phoenix better get plenty of sleep on Friday night, not to mention waiting until Sunday to check out Iron Man 3. That’s because Saturday, May 4, gonna be a red-letter day that’s like a ink-stained, pulp-filled, four-color mashup of Phoenix Comicon, Halloween, and Christmastime. The…
Special Events Arizona Event Center 1300 S. Country Club Dr., Mesa www.arizonaeventcenter.com Danny Serrano, Richard Galaviz Jr., Manny Llanez, Kevin Soto, Jorge Ruiz, Ernesto Ortiz, and other jokesters will perform during the Latin Comedy Night on Saturday, May 4. 8 p.m.; $10 for general seating, $20-$200 for VIP treatment. Call…
Where has Robert Downey Jr. gone? There’s no doubt he’s the star of Iron Man 3; he sprints through the picture like a neurotic panther. And yet he’s absent, detached in a Zen-like way from the whole affair. The nakedness that defines his best performances — in any role, up…
“The meek shall inherit the Earth,” somebody said once — probably Truffaut. Two pictures into his thrilling career, writer-director Antonio Campos seems determined to show us that might not be anything to celebrate. Campos’ debut, 2008’s Afterschool, was essentially one part Blow Up to three parts Rushmore-as-psychological-horror-flick. While it took…
Would you sign on for three months in shark-infested waters on a tippy raft under a captain who can’t swim? The shrewdest joke in Kon-Tiki’s surefire story — about Thor Heyerdahl’s 4,000-mile South Pacific expedition to prove that ocean-faring Incans could have settled Tahiti — is that practically every character…
Just as Mad Men charms its viewers by using sex, drugs, snappy banter, and pretty people to make heavy topics (sexism, racism, dreams diffused) palatable, the editors of Mad Men, Mad World trust that some TV glamour will get readers interested in digesting academic theories. It’s not wrong. Full of…
Stephanie Zacharek is the new chief film critic at the Village Voice. Alan Scherstuhl is the Voice’s film editor. Sometimes they gab about how the review-sausage gets made. To: Stephanie Zacharek From: Alan Scherstuhl Hi, Stephanie, welcome again to the Voice! Like you, I found myself worn out by Iron…
Iron Man 3 has opened. For some viewers, the film’s appeal isn’t the eponymous superhero, but the sarcastic-yet-sensitive hero behind the gravity-defying, repulsor-ray-shooting suit of armor. I refer, of course, to Shane Black. Iron Man 3’s co-writer/director recharged the buddy-cop flick in the ’80s with his screenplay for Lethal Weapon…
Hey Phoenix, did you know we have a soccer team? Because we totally do! With cleats and shin guards and everything! They’re called the Phoenix FC (which we’ve been told stands for “football club”), its nickname is the Wolves, and they’ve been playing games at the remodeled Sun Devil Soccer…
The mantra “print is dead” has been trumpeted for the past decade, but — sorry haters — readers gonna read. Comic books, in particular, have kept eyeballs glued to pages. Free Comic Book Day will be celebrated all across the Valley this Saturday, May 4, and with it the Arizona…
Here it comes again, the time of year for margarita-swilling and taco-munching. The time when we revel in the Mexican army’s 1862 defeat of the French military. As well we should. If things had gone differently, we might be celebrating with snails and snobby red wine.While most establishments north of…
For some cats, customized hot rods, lowriders, and other souped-up rides aren’t just a casual hobby. They’re more like an entire way of life.Local artist El Moisés, for instance, grew up immersed in lowrider culture. And it’s heavily influenced his art, from childhood sketches of vintage vehicles his father painted…
It’s odd that horse racing and dog racing are viewed so differently. When you boil the two activities down to their essentials, they’re both basically gambling over which animal will run the fastest over the course of a couple of minutes. There’s no denying horse racing is the more genteel…
Sir Ernest Shackleton was one tough mother. Marooned by sea ice that destroyed his ship during the 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Shackleton and his crew survived a winter on meager rations, the occasional leopard seal (which tried to feed on them), cunning, and wits. Ultimately, the journey became a triumph of…
LA Ink and Ink Master are entertaining ways to gawk at (mostly) good tattoos, but the real fun comes from shows like Tattoo Nightmares, which shows how sometimes awful work can be salvaged into something great. Unfortunately you’re usually stuck with a bad tattoo — unless you want a large,…
It would be all too easy for outsiders to call us Arizonans out on our apparent hypocrisy in celebrating Cinco De Mayo. After all, we are the “show me your papers” state and have garnered a reputation for being a tad unfriendly to our southern neighbors. Yet here were are,…
Aziz Ansari’s latest stand-up sets have revolved around one big ol’ universal topic: relationships. Themes of dating, marriage, and kids (and a fear of all of the above) are at the fore of the new material the comedian’s dishing during his Buried Alive Tour.The grown-up topics are a departure from…
The concept of devoting your life to the beautiful movement of male and female bodies, working on their own and intertwined as one, isn’t just a sleazy pick up line coming from the mouth of the skeezeball at the bar. It was the lifework of famed Russian choreographer George Balanchine…
