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The Cardinals, the Sun Devils, and the Wildcats have given local football fans more reasons to be angry and nihilistic than happy. With all of the pain and suffering those teams have inflicted on loyal fans, the success of the Arizona Rattlers tends to get overlooked. They haven’t gotten much…

Single Sensation

If you have somehow managed to mosey through the last year without hearing Foster The People’s infectious single “Pumped Up Kicks,” you’re either deaf, a hermit, or some sort of Houdini, which is, incidentally, the name of one of the band’s other singles. Originally named Foster & The People, the…

Spacial Relations

Viewers of MTV’s recently axed hipster sitcom I Want My Pants Back mailed hundreds of pairs of jeans to the network office in protest. Thankfully, fans of Joss Whedon’s short-lived space western Firefly prefer to don extra clothing, rather than take it off. Relive the glory days of the series…

Super bowl

Before brothers Ethan and Joel Cohen directed box hits O’Brother Where Art Thou and No Country for Old Men, they released a box office disappointment about a scruffy slacker in a bathrobe on a reimbursement quest to replace his beloved living room rug. That film flop, a.k.a. The Big Lebowski,…

Sunbathing Beauties

It’s that time of year again. Temperatures are flirting with the 110s, and we’re left to wonder why we didn’t flock Northeast with our snowbird grandparents. There is one distinct benefit to sticking around, though, and it’s the one thing that seems to keep us sane in the blistering heat:…

War of the Worlds

There’s an old school Star Trek episode in which Captain Kirk and crew find themselves on the edge of a parallel universe. Everything happening on one side is also happening, albeit with a slight twist, in the other universe. It seems like the Phoenix Mercury and Atlanta Dream similarly operate…

Renaissance Men

For someone who’s been dead (yeah, “allegedly,” whatever) for nearly 16 years, Tupac Shakur sure has been in the news a lot lately. First the deceased rapper got some California love when a hologram resembling him “performed” alongside Snoop Dogg at Coachella. Then it was revealed that a gunman had…

Startenders

In the Valley of the Sun everyone has a little scene of their friends, hobbies, and hangouts. That’s all well and good. There’s nothing really wrong with doing your own thing, but perhaps a little figurative shaking up and stirring wouldn’t hurt. In comes RAW Scottsdale’s Mixology Arts Showcase, an…

Carrying a Torch

Thanks to divas like Adele and Fiona Apple, the art of the torch song isn’t completely dead. But you’re unlikely to find a sultry songstress crooning ballads in a hazy, smoke-filled room in Phoenix, and not just because of the smoking ban. TML Arts aims to fill that void with…

The Spider Becomes a Man in The Amazing Spider-Man

The spider becomes a man — and a joy — in The Amazing Spider-Man. The Amazing Spider-Man, an inexcusably good reboot from director Marc Webb, celebrates the heartwarming arachno-genetic bar mitzvah in which a boy becomes a spider and a spider becomes a man, a rite of passage last observed…

To Rome with Love: Everything Continues Apace in Woody Allen’s Latest

In Woody Allen’s new film, To Rome With Love, people — like, really young people — still talk, improbably, about “neuroses.” Horny, middle-age businessmen actually stand around the water cooler and ogle the hot secretary, as in the Playboy cartoons of the ancients. In the Allen Legendarium, Freudian psychiatrists never…

Savages: Oliver Stone’s Drug-Trade Drama Settles for Sensation

“Welcome to the recession, boys,” says John Travolta’s DEA-double-agent profiteer in Oliver Stone’s Savages, based on Don Winslow’s novel. Savages is a movie of its moment, though both its good guys and bad guys (if there’s really even a difference) are unquestionably the 1 percent of their industry — that…

A Tour Doc Reveals Katy Perry’s Essential Katy Perry-ness

From bubblegum-bi-curious novelty “I Kissed a Girl” on, Katy Perry has built a career on glorious brain-dead-with-a-wink odes to playacting in a fantasy space of total acceptance and no consequences, sold to children with literal sugarcoating. Her hits are powerful stuff, coming from an artist who was raised by Pentecostal…

Spam-A-Lot

How into theater are you? We dare you to spring for the value-packed VIP pass to Phoenix Theatre’s 15th annual Hormel New Works Festival. You won’t merely get admission to four star-studded staged readings and An Evening of Short Plays and the results of the legendary and incredible 24-Hour Theatre…

Playing Doctor

The past weeks have been busy for local movie buffs Jeremiah Wilkerson and Andrea Beesley. The geeky cinéaste couple, who formerly ran repertory theater The Royale in Mesa, has recently celebrated the arrival of their first child. Oh, and the pair has also been busy transforming into their dastardly alter…

The Goalin’ Age

Not since the summer of 2010, when Shakira summoned us with her siren song for the FIFA World Cup championship, has there been so much soccer in the air. The European Football Championship just wrapped up and Olympic soccer is on the way, so you might as well kick it…

Twitterpated

Airlines aren’t giving anything away for free these days. That makes us jealous of our winged friends, as bird feeders still provide an in-flight meal, completely gratis. But then again we’re neither cute nor feathered — and we can’t sing that well. Perhaps instead of whining, we should follow the…

65: Christopher Crosby

When we last put the spotlight on 100 creative forces in Phoenix, it was no secret there were more than 100 individuals who were making waves in the local arts community. So as we count down to our annual Best of Phoenix issue, we’re profiling 100 more. Welcome (back) to 100 Creatives Christopher Crosby…

Sheer Blue Dress at Arcadia Vintage

See also: Boutique Solie Opens in My Florist Center See also: Seven Summer Trends to Avoid (Please) Gem features one standout piece from a local shop. Whether it’s a jacket, necklace, or handbag, it’s on our have-to-have list. What: Airy dresses are a must-have when it comes to summer duds…