“IN-CRIMI-NATION” at The Icehouse: If you think the Iraq War is our countrys low point, wait until you see The Icehouses latest sniper shot at America. Artist Mona Higuchis 12-foot-high woven paper reprint of a vintage photograph depicting Japanese girls stitching camouflage cargo nets at an internment camp is a…
A few years ago, a friend of mine had a great idea for a Halloween costume. His plan was to find a framed painting of a woman’s portrait, cut out the eyes, and peek through the holes. He would be the mysterious shifty-eyed spy seen in horror movies or the…
Long ago, there reigned a clan of Speedo-wearing militaristic psychopaths called the Spartans. They lived beneath a copper-colored sky, on a copper-colored land, amidst copper-colored fields, in copper-colored homes made from copper-colored stone. Legend has it they would outline their copper-colored pecs and abs with ash to enhance their manly…
I am sorry to say that Peter did not feel very well that evening. His mother put him to bed and gave him a dose of chamomile tea. “One tablespoon to be taken at bedtime.” But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper. — Beatrix…
Mexico City — Less than 24 hours after the Oscars capped the remarkable year of the so-called “three amigos” by handing out three awards to Pan’s Labyrinth and one to Babel, I boarded a plane bound for Mexico City and the fourth edition of the Mexico City International Contemporary Film…
Green Day is coming, and we ain’t talking about the punk band, brah. Nope, it’s the annual alcoholic extravaganva known as St. Patrick’s Day, where liquor and leprechauns collide in one clamorous Celtic craic. Everyone can have a wee bit of Irish in them, especially after pounding a few pints…
Unlike its Wii Sports predecessor, only two players can play Wii Play at a time — barely living up to the definition of “We.” And playing Wii Play alone is a hollow feeling. Strangely, Wii Play acts as a “Wiimote 101” tutorial instead of an inspired game collection. The emphasis…
Revenge of the Nerds: Panty Raid Edition (Fox) Revenge of the Nerds is a great movie. No, really. It’s got a bitching new-wave soundtrack and some truly inspired performances — memorable enough to wreck the careers of Robert Carradine (Lewis) and Curtis Armstrong (Booger). But mostly it’s the mix of…
A Brush With Death (New Light) Buster Crabbe Collection (St. Clair Vision) Captain Horatio Hornblower (Warner Bros.) Care Bears: Friends Forever (Lions Gate) Commissar (Kino) Confetti (Fox) Death Row (Anchor Bay) The Electric Company’s Greatest Hits & Bits (Shout) Fast Food Nation (Fox) The Full Monty: Fully Exposed Edition (Fox)…
On March 13, 1997, thousands of witnesses saw a mysterious light formation hovering over the Valley. Local residents were terrified. Was this a supersecret military craft or were we about to become victims of anal probes? Find out more at the “Alien Images: UFOs, Photography and Belief” exhibit, a visual…
Betty Comden: As one half of the legendary musical duo of Comden and Green, Betty Comden produced six decades’ worth of Hollywood and Broadway hits. The duo penned screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, including Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon, and On the…
Indigo Verton offers some freaky fun at The Red Door, 1229 Grand Avenue, with her “Absurdism” extravaganza. In addition to Charles Sanderson’s painting oddities, there’ll be “interactive installation art” (including bags of wine hanging from the ceiling) and absurdist entertainment all weekend, with a smorgasbord of sideshow acts, “chin puppetry,”…
Like the Wallace and Ladmo Show on mescaline, Uncle Sku’s Clubhouse is a whacked-out kids’ show of comedy and music shenanigans featuring Sku “T-Bone” Hadley, Rusty the Kid, Mr. Jangles the Chain-Smoking Puppet, and Maestro “Can Do” Andrew. The latest episode, on Friday, March 2, at the Trunk Space, 1506…
With his longstanding liquor-license problems straightened out, Brickhouse Theatre owner Roger Belfiore is planning some phat festivities for Friday, March 2, at his joint, located at 1 East Jackson Street. B-boy dance competitions kick things off at 3 p.m., followed by live graf work from Adam “Dumperfoo” Dumper (pictured) and…
Standing in the vacant lot beside Modified Arts, 407 East Roosevelt, this plywood wall created by (from left in photo) students Marcial White, Jordan Womack, and Ben Hyde, provides attendees with a chance to pick up some spray paint and create “live art chaos” alongside experienced graf workers in a…
Soul Invictus Cabaret, 1022 Grand Avenue, hosts two nights of gender-bending entertainment featuring the showing of six different queer-friendly short films. The lineup on Friday, March 2, includes Season of the Troll, Taco Chick and Salsa Girl, and Nightmare on Castro Street, with music by all-girl punkers The Pubes; while…
It may be hard out there for a pimp, but it ain’t too hard for a writer-director to make a movie whose marketing hinges on the lurid spectacle of Samuel L. Jackson pulling a half-naked Christina Ricci around on a chain. This sort of cheap trick is what they used…
When editorial cartoonist turned amateur sleuth Robert Graysmith published Zodiac, his sprawling, meticulously researched account of the titular San Francisco serial killer, he wrote that the tale was “the most frightening story I know,” and it was easy to understand why. Graysmith was writing in 1985, some 16 years after…
Wild Hogs — in which John Travolta, William H. Macy, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence play emasculated suburbanites taking a cross-country motorcycle trip to rediscover their masculinity — doesn’t even sound like a real movie when you describe it to people. They give you that yer-shittin’-me stare, as though it were even possible to make […]
Lisa Jacobs, 31, known to many as Sticker Club Girl, is a multitalented designer of handcrafted “wearable art” textiles, ranging from jewelry and tee shirts to purses and fashion-show dresses. Her comfortable central Phoenix studio — a dolled-up carport filled with shelves of design mags, drawers of patterns, and salvaged…
About halfway through the second act of Christopher Durang’s wildly funny Betty’s Summer Vacation, a couple of electric saws appear out of nowhere and hack a giant hole into the back wall of the stage set. From that jagged fissure shoots a huge slide, down which come tumbling a trio…
For the aging videogamer, nothing’s as sorely missed as the corner arcade. Unlike the family-friendly Dance Dance Revolution discos you see today, classic arcades were seedy little dives tucked into strip malls — dark caves thick with the musty bouquet of cheap carpet and adolescent stench. They were also thick…
