Ongoing “Rising to unimaginable heights” doesn’t just describe summer’s sweat-extracting temperatures. Mere mortals have the opportunity to make like degrees Fahrenheit — and rise — thanks to the certified pilots at Gila Air, who offer introductory flights and lessons to anybody interested in putting 1,000 feet between themselves and the…
John Miranda is not a racist. The 68-year-old former Marine insists he posted a sign reading “For Sale to Whites Only” in front of his Waddell home because he wants to protect future owners of the property from racism. Miranda is leaving his Clearwater Farms neighborhood because he says the…
I admit that I ended up more interested in the audience that came to see The Pirates of Penzance than I was in the show itself. That’s not because there’s nothing to like about this latest Hale Centre Theatre production, which contains some beautiful singing and several nice performances. But…
Jonathan Demme’s gutsy The Manchurian Candidate, which dares to rear its head just after the Democratic National Convention in Boston, is the anti-Bush-administration movie for those who refuse to see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 or Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed because, well, they just ain’t Right. It’s less a remake of director…
Moviegoers who know the tides of recent Brazilian history likely will get more from Hector Babenco’s new prison movie, Carandiru, than the rest of us, because the filmmaker tells us so little about the society beyond the walls that helped shape the violent yet carefully ordered world within them. On…
If you’re, oh, 11 years old and you’ve had it up to here with Spider-Man’s current case of existential angst, it’s time to blow your weekly allowance on Thunderbirds. This special-effects-crammed action blockbuster aims a bit lower, age-wise, which is to say its hyperactive young hero wears a retainer on…
Last month, Robert Lopez lost a member of his crew — a brother, practically — to a bullet, yet, now more than ever, he sees reason to dance. Kelvin Mitchell, 19, was killed June 28 in a west Phoenix shooting, and this weekend, Lopez (known on the scene as “Chino”)…
Oppressed smokers of the Valley, cheer up: Dave Attell feels your pain. Whether surviving a smoking ban or forking over a fiver to satisfy a nic fit, the 39-year-old comedian, who lights up the Tempe Improv this weekend, is familiar with the trials and tribulations of tobacco use. “In New…
8/1-8/30 In creating her latest exhibition — “Convergent Memory?,” a collaboration with poet John Cauthorn — Lisa Takata merely hoped to advance the working relationship between visual artists and poets. What the exhibition became, and what it promises to become for visitors to the @Central Gallery at Burton Barr Library,…
7/30-8/1 Don’t hate the players — hate the game. Back in the day, all we needed was Mountain Dew, a few Snickers bars, Super Nintendo, and for our parents to leave us undisturbed for 72 hours. Nowadays, we need a full-blown gaming conference. And for what? So we can puss…
MON 8/2 If laughter truly is the best medicine, Gary Coleman just might be the cure for cancer. No confirmation on this, but we even hear that thoughts of Arnold Drummond are directly linked to lower cholesterol levels and speedier recovery from gastrointestinal bypass surgery. So the organizers of the…
“Imagine That!” at the West Valley Art Museum: The current selection at this oft-forgotten spot includes an exhibition organized by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum titled “Imagine That! A Whimsical Take on Nature.” The idea was to challenge traditional wildlife artists to create images of fictional animals — merging species, switching…
The opening moments of The Door in the Floor are not promising. A little girl stands on a chair in a hallway of photos, pointing at the images and speaking about them. Soon, she is joined by a middle-aged man, probably her father, who takes her on a tour through…
THU 22 We’re not sure who the real star of a Chris Putrino Band show is: a bouncing, jumping Chris Putrino — or his dark, flowing and, frankly, frightening mullet? Nevertheless, Putrino — who jumps off the stage, and “the audience comes alive!” — and the members of his band…
7/22-7/30 Bumper stickers seen on the highways of Arizona, adorning rusted-out pickup trucks, primer-gray vans, and yellow, dented Pintos: “Keep honking, I’m reloading.” “How am I driving? Dial 1-800-Eat-Shit.” “Don’t tailgate me or I’ll flick a booger on your windshield.” When the best you can expect from a commute dispute…
Michael 23 is an artist whose art has taken many forms. At the moment, he’s into robotics. “I try to understand how technology works in order to protect the survival of the species against it,” he says. Michael does that in a studio called Thought Crime located near Third Street…
Without risking much critical credibility, it can be said that Catwoman succeeds on its own feline terms. Much like a cat, the movie is a superfluous gob of fluff with an attitude ranging from idiotic to nasty. It’s a sleek and self-absorbed animal, adoring itself so ardently that those of…
The 114 musicians and performers who make up the Arizona Academy Drum and Bugle Corps aren’t your typical band geeks who “this one time, at band camp” performed obscene acts with clarinets and oboes. (After all, there are no woodwinds in drum corps. As if!) Then again, they don’t possess…
If splashy special effects and epic backdrops are a must for your theater-going experience, Phoenix Theatre’s Seventh Annual New Works Festival might not be for you. The monthlong festival, starting this weekend, showcases a workshop production of a new musical and staged readings of three new plays. In other words,…
Sun 7/25 So much for the pity. The only splash Lollapalooza 2004 made was in the toilet, but The Thrills bounced back instantly from the cancellation, booking a big U.S. tour with fellow Lolla-gaggers and U.K. rockers Gomez. Such good fortune hounds the Dublin band — get a load of…
SAT 7/24 A dream catcher — a hoop strung with netting — traps bad dreams while allowing good ones to swish through, functioning pretty much like a basket on the basketball court. Dream catchers — in the entirely figurative sense — take to the court this Saturday, July 24, for…
Wed 7/28 What Zephryn Conte does with a beat is easily defined: anything she wants. To be more precise, Conte, who’s “somewhere between 40 and ageless,” uses her omnipotent rhythmic abilities to channel dance, song and rhyme into one performance — the Zephryn Conte Jazz/Poetry Experience, on Wednesday, July 28,…
