8/27-9/19 On Wednesday, August 27, the planet Mars will be closer to the Earth — 56 million kilometers — than it has been in some 60,000 years; Neanderthals were the last to observe Mars in such proximity, according to NASA. It’s obviously an appropriate date for the opening of “See…
He knows there are people, too many, who do not like him. He has to know. They’ve told him to his face–the studio executives who slice and snip the scenes he loves the most and suffer his outbursts for it, the directors he’s pushed out of the way so he…
I normally don’t review children’s theater, but the temptation to watch several dozen teenagers drown was too great, and so I attended an evening performance of Valley Youth Theatre’s Titanic last week. I’ve seen this show once before, enacted by adults, and so I knew what I was in for:…
It’s a great pleasure to behold a chunk of art that’s both dank and fresh at the same time, and this appraisal perfectly fits the superb Dirty Pretty Things. The latest from veteran director Stephen Frears (Gumshoe, Prick Up Your Ears, High Fidelity) immediately transports the viewer to a subjective…
Kevin Costner appeared in his first Western when he was 30 and looked to be in his early 20s. He was a slender, restless actor in Lawrence Kasdan’s Silverado, the 1985 film in which Costner played the blithe brother of a somber Scott Glenn — all giggles and gunshots, a…
Ah, Paris — City of Light, of Love, of Liver Damage and Lung Cancer. C’est formidable, non? Who in need of a posh vacation would turn down the opportunity to luxuriate in its finest hotels, to stuff oneself with sumptuous snails, and to work on a terribly flat romantic drama…
If you thought big hair went out with the ’80s, you haven’t been to Much Ado: A Summer Soiree, an annual fashion show devoted to crazy, creative coiffures by stylists from some of the Valley’s best salons. Proceeds benefit Body Positive, an HIV and AIDS research and resource center. Broadway…
Thursday, August 14 Gravity Games, the national extreme sports competition, culminates two months from now in Cleveland, but excitement is already building with the FUEL and Skateboarder Magazine D-Tour, hitting the Valley on Thursday, August 14. Watch skateboarding demos by professionals such as Ray Molinar, Paul Otvos, Rob Gonzales and…
It was 1979, a hair’s breadth away from a quarter of a century ago, when the lowrider movement took root in Phoenix, one of the largest Chicano metropolises in the United States. Originally, in Southern California during the ’50s and ’60s, the inches-off-the-ground, candy-colored, slow-rolling hoopties were a socially defiant…
8/14-8/16 We moved to Arizona for the cowboy cachet, but the dusty trail has been paved over by cities’ mean streets. Cowboys still live and work in the West, though. Listen to their poems borne of solitude and the open range at Prescott’s Cowboy Poets Gathering, Thursday, August 14, through…
Fri 8/15 Sometimes we humans become so fixated on what’s happening in our own area code that we forget about all the cool destinations that make up the cosmos above us. And while astronomy can be a solitary endeavor, it can be all the more rewarding when pursued with a…
8/23-4/2004 Not all actors are blessed with natural ability — some talents need to be nurtured. With a little encouragement and instruction, your budding Keanu and Madonna could blossom into Bogey and Bacall. Enter Valley Youth Theatre’s Fall Workshops, which offer a “comprehensive education in the performing arts” while building…
Thu 8/14 Got a weakness for good wine? Then flight for your right to party starting Thursday, August 14, when Furio hosts Flight Night, a new wine event featuring flights of three boutique wines and chic eats prepared by executive chef Jagger Griffin. A different local wine lover hosts the…
Thu 8/14 “I think that comedy should not occur only in smoky nightclubs,” says comedian and show organizer Victoria Lipman. “It should be everywhere.” The Comedy Sorority (one of several troupes Lipman organizes) is not only all female, but also all squeaky clean. Lipman has only two rules in her…
The heck with Novocain and smiley receptionists. Dr. Kelly Cook has the solution to painless dentistry: loud rock music and lots of laughing gas. Even without the drugs, Cook is a kick; a drill-wielding DDS with the bedside manner of Ron Wood. His Chandler office is crammed with enough music…
Aderelict-looking Toucan Sam clutches a wad of money in one wing, a paper-bag-wrapped liquor bottle in the other. Behind him Cap’n Crunch and Lucky the Leprechaun (of Lucky Charms fame) are in a purple convertible lowrider; Crunch is riding shotgun, firing a semi-automatic handgun at a Keebler elf and that…
A guy in a gown is usually good for a laugh, and the mere mention of a beauty pageant these days elicits at least a good, loud snicker. Thus Pageant — The Musical, a drag show that’s more than a drag show; a musical spoof that takes shots at beauty…
Mississippi had Tennessee Williams, and Manhattan has Fran Liebowitz, but Phoenix is home to David Pittman. The 50-ish “frustrated joke writer” has just received national acclaim as the grand-prize winner of Parkay margarine’s Best Butter-Ups contest, which asked oleo fans across the country to submit witty slogans about non-butter spreads…
There’s magic in Northfork — both in the movie, by twin brothers Mark and Michael Polish, and in the Montana town soon to be drowned by the opening of the dam keeping the baptismal waters at bay. Northfork is a beguiling and bittersweet fantasy set in a netherworld where the…
Not to worry. Whenever summer machismo levels threaten to fall below mad-dog range, Hollywood invariably steps in to restore the status quo. Witness S.W.A.T. , a thoroughly unremarkable police action movie starring the magnetic Samuel L. Jackson as L.A.P.D. Sergeant Dan “Hondo” Harrelson, known affectionately to his men as “the…
If the traditional rock concert routine is growing tedious — what with the archaic guitar-drum-bass combo, occasional crazed-groupie nudity, and sweet, sweaty euphoria — take heart: Three hairless blue fellows are freshening the scene. Blue Man Group — best known for its multisensory mix of percussive music, theater, art and…
