Punk Rock. That’s right, Punk Rock. Where the hell are all my CDs you local bands are supposed to send me? The idea here is to get the word out about your music and your ideas. And that goes for you in the other arts as well. If I can…
I hate Shakespeare. I always have. And you — if you’re unfortunate enough to have slogged through one of his interminable plays (or worse, a film adaptation of same) — probably hate him, too. That is, unless you’re a snooty dilettante who’s allowed himself to be convinced that every couplet…
THU 7 We’re amazed — and subsequently quite pleased — that the über-structured hierarchy of Arizona State University continues to keep the scattered and beautiful mind of Chris Danowski on its payroll as a theater professor. So we won’t be greedy and lobby for a raise for the guy, but…
“What do ya think?” asks Nick, my 74-year-old stepdad, as we watch the same Casino Arizona commercial on the television for the zillionth time. You know, the one with the Showstoppers Live bit. “The fuckin’ Blues Brothers rule,” I tell him. “You wanna go check them out?” he asks. I…
Childsplay’s Romeo and Juliet is not just for kids. Thanks to crafty staging and a talented cast, all of them able to play persuasively any age or gender, it’s an edifying and even entertaining production of this oft-told love story. At a Sunday matinee populated mostly by underdressed tweens, I…
Everyone with a TV remembers President Bush in the flight suit, landing on that aircraft carrier, standing in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner, and triumphantly declaring that major combat operations in Iraq were over. Two years on, many feel like asking exactly what he meant by that. Gunner Palace…
Last year, the Simmons family of Needham, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, sent Christmas cards for the first time in more than 20 years. “We send out Xmas cards about as often as the Red Sox win the World Series,” the card very cleverly proclaimed. This movie is for them. In…
Almost as wide as he is tall, with a round but unremarkable face, Schultze doesn’t look like a rebel. Truth to tell, he looks like Curly of Three Stooges fame, or, less kindly, a mass murderer (well, he does bear a passing but disturbing resemblance to John Wayne Gacy). Schultze…
Sorry, retro rock fans, but Rush: The Musical won’t have a Geddy Lee cameo, nor will there be any chorus-line cancans to “Tom Sawyer.” ASU senior Lauren Henschen came up with something even cheekier: a “goofy pop-rock romp” about five college girls trying to survive sorority rush week. Henschen’s participated…
If it’s any consolation to Kevin Bacon, the backers of the Phoenix Film Festival believe he’s worthy of recognition, even if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t. Bacon’s taken the Oscars snub — the Academy ignoring his leading-role performance in The Woodsman, one most critics said was…
SAT 4/9 Wanna be in gay porn pronto, Tonto? Better show ’em your “Oh!” face on Saturday, April 9, at the Bunkhouse, 4428 North Seventh Avenue, where Will Clark, a gay porn “star” — none of the men at the Bunkhouse during a recent happy hour would admit to knowing…
SAT 4/9 While most consider rolling off the couch to manually change TV channels a severe hardship, a unique subculture that thrives on brutally pushing their bodies to the verge of collapse visits Tempe this weekend. They’ll compete hoping to break the tape — or simply finish — in Arizona’s…
4/9-5/11 When 17-year-old Mountain Pointe High School student Erika Vogt-Nilsen entered a graphically designed image of an evil-looking puppeteer dangling a crucified Christ in her school’s winter art show in January, she learned an important lesson on the provocative nature of art. A small group of viewers, including a particular…
4/8-4/29 It’s not easy being a queen; just ask Doug Loynd. “There’s pain involved in being in drag,” says the 41-year-old actor. “Makeup takes two hours, breasts are heavy, earrings pinch, and heels hurt.” The transvestite toil is worth it, however, as Loynd has a shot at fame as one…
Sahara is a stunning piece of work — stunningly inept, stunningly incoherent, stunningly awful in every single way imaginable. How this didn’t go directly to video or cable or airplane or bootleg is unfathomable. Actually, that’s not entirely true. It gets a proper blockbuster theatrical release through Paramount Pictures because…
I’ve written many thousands of words about my most beloved gadget, the GameBoy. And, of course, the GameBoy Advance. Tiny machines that let me play video games on the go. I could play golf while standing in line at the supermarket, play Tetris at the bank, and Zelda on the…
Dale Chihuly: Before Dale Chihuly became the godfather of art glass, he worked as a commercial fisherman to earn money for grad school. He brings this memory of the world beneath the waves to the glass works on exhibit at Phoenix’s premier contemporary art gallery. Eight undulating pieces that look…
Does the world really need a new film from Woody Allen every single year? Yes, he is one of America’s great auteurs. Yes, he’s responsible for some very fine movies, many of them comedies (Annie Hall), several of them tragedies (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Another Woman), and some hovering in that…
THU 31 Who knew it would take 25 self-proclaimed “idiots” to end an 86-year-old curse? Or that it would take almost eight years to get the Boston Red Sox to visit Bank One Ballpark? Anchored by former Arizona Diamondback and 2001 World Series co-MVP Curt Schilling, the world champs make…
Note to young hipsters who want to claim famed underground filmmaker George Kuchar as their own: You’re 40 years too late. Although Kuchar is hotter than ever with disaffected young film fans, his oeuvre of oddball movies actually belongs to your parents — assuming your parents are the sort of…
“He’s the exact same guy after 25 years,” I exclaim to my old college buddy, Aaron, who’s in town visiting, as well as to my 74-year-old stepdad, Nick. “What’d you expect?” says Nick, as we all crowd around my television and watch a DVD of my old band, Roach Motel…
Ed Dominguez, 38, painter, Phoenix booster, refugee from architecture and from San Juan, Puerto Rico, his birthplace. His large-format paintings of nuns have made brides of Christ hotter than ever, and his newest series is designed to do the same for our downtown skyscrapers. Jump high or stay home: San…
