Thursday, March 18Our enthusiasm for cultural outings is directly proportional to the amount of free food involved. We become the most passionate of patrons this Thursday, March 18, when the Scottsdale Gallery Association partners with the Scottsdale Culinary Festival to put a tasteful twist on the city’s weekly ArtWalk. While…
3/18-3/27″Friendship, not technology, is the only thing capable of showing us the enormity of the world,” Steven Dietz says of his play Lonely Planet. In this cleverly written, almost absurdist work, friends Jody and Carl (a map store owner and a pathological liar with a penchant for collecting chairs) face…
While the war against gay marriage wails in the background, a traveling exhibition titled “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933-1945” has settled in at Burton Barr Central Library. It’s the first in a series of exhibitions from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum about the non-Jewish groups persecuted by the Nazis…
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which a man has recollections of a soured relationship erased from his brain, may be the most romantic movie in recent memory, if you will pardon the unforgivable pun. Written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, it’s about many things –…
A comedian, a poet and a clown walk into a bar. Stop us if you’ve heard this one . . . Tony Vicich, a comedy coach with the Tempe Improv, is banking on the chance that you haven’t. And there is no punch line: The quirky combination of characters is…
3/18-3/21 It’s been said that cowboys are born and not made — a fact apparent to anyone who’s ridden and roped with white-collar wanna-bes at a dude ranch. Still, everybody wants to be a cowboy, and our fascination with the character and culture of the Old West thrives in a…
The following is a select listing of music, restaurant and bar activities planned at various Valley venues on Wednesday, March 17, unless otherwise stated. Call the telephone numbers listed for details. Special Events Family Fun Night, March 12 Fountain of Life International 1055 E. Hearn Rd. No cover. Entertainment by…
Thursday, March 11 Take a revealing look at an industry where the G-strings are lined with gold. Addressing “the self-esteem, dependency and objectification issues that plague dancers’ lives,” True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl continues its run at ASU Thursday, March 11, and Friday, March 12. While Jill Morley’s play…
Ever since Tucson’s District 29 Representative Linda Lopez proposed a statewide smoking ban in restaurants and bars, Mark Brnovich has been steamed. Lopez and Brnovich, who’s the director of the Goldwater Institute Center for Constitutional Government, have been duking it out in print ever since she and something called Arizonans…
Aside from a single, tatty staircase that could use a good coat of paint, David Weiss has created a plush, gorgeous set for his directorial bow with Nearly Naked Theater. Unfortunately, he’s filled this resplendent stage with an unremarkable performance of The House of Yes, playwright Wendy MacLeod’s spectacularly vulgar…
The problem with Spartan isn’t so much that it’s mediocre, but that it could be a whole lot better. Unlike writer-director David Mamet’s last movie, Heist, a film with such a generic plot and predictable Gene Hackman performance that it never had a chance, Spartan has a reasonably compelling story…
Thu 3/11 Nearly a decade before San Francisco’s mayor incited a bold uprising of gay marriage supporters, Sandi DuBowski, a soft-spoken director from Brooklyn, was flirting with the idea of making a film. Jewish and gay, DuBowski is no stranger to discrimination. Indeed, his life would make for a riveting…
3/12-3/14 Here’s a thought for all you conscientious drivers out there: If you need a parachute to stop your car, you may be exceeding socially acceptable speed limits. Try telling that to a drag racer, a thrill seeker who, on the danger scale, makes Indy and Formula One racers look…
Ongoing Those seeking Sanctuary in Scottsdale’s nightlife are most certainly a saddened bunch these days, now that the 3-year-old nightclub is no more. But Diane Corieri, co-owner of the former glitter hot spot, promises that its reincarnation, Myst — which recently staged its grand opening — will dry those crocodile…
If you were expecting the first film to emerge from Afghanistan since the defeat of the Taliban to be even remotely celebratory, you’ll have to adjust your expectations. Radically. In Osama, filmed in 2002 and 2003 in a “suburb” of Kabul, writer-director Siddiq Barmak is not interested in showing us…
Quick . . . which East Valley city was the leading manufacturer of ostrich-related products during the first quarter of the 20th century? If you answered Chandler, you’re correct. (You may also be one of those trivia geeks no one likes to stand next to at a party.) Dedicated to…
With gay rights at the forefront of political debate, “timely” seems too insipid a word to describe the arrival of “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933-1945,” a traveling exhibition opening this weekend at downtown’s Burton Barr Central Library. As a symbol of recognition, the exhibition has been a long time coming…
3/12-3/13 It took Joye Sass four months to write her play. But she’s spent half her life coping with the rape that inspired Demons, written and directed by Sass, which opens at the Paper Heart Gallery on Friday, March 12. Sass, 37, wrote Demons four years ago. “But I wasn’t…
ASU law professor Gary Lowenthal wrote a book about interning in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Down and Dirty Justice went easy on Rick Romley and his staff for standards and practices that others have widely disparaged, but word is that Romley and pals aren’t amused by Lowenthal’s book. New…
Used to be Art Detour was a depressing event — a benchmark of just how far the downtown Phoenix arts scene hadn’t come. The three-day tour of Phoenix art venues was held at the end of March, always landing, it seemed, on the first uncomfortably warm day of the year…
At first glance, Hidalgo seems to be nothing more than an old-fashioned, flat-footed adventure epic plunked down on a vast stretch of desert and amply furnished with the usual Hollywood conventions — a strong, silent cowboy on horseback, a couple of villains with nasty black mustaches, a killer sandstorm and…
Maybe the most amazing thing about the big-screen version of Starsky & Hutch is how much smaller it feels than its predecessor, the William Blinn-created, Aaron Spelling-produced cop series that ran on ABC from 1975 to ’79. Everything about this cineplex variation feels rinky-dink, like some extended variety-show skit that…
