One of the best new video games on the market requires you to take math tests. During summer break, no less. But before you cue up “Night on Bald Mountain” and run like hell, you really should play Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree. Any “party title” that can hold a…
You’re Gonna Miss Me (Palm) A hit at the South by Southwest Film Festival two years ago, Keven McAlester’s doc about the Papa of Psychedelia, Roky Erickson, at long last gets its proper release. But time has done McAlester a tremendous favor: Had he shot the film too soon, he…
Herberger Theater Center’s Lunch Time Theater series is, quite simply, full of win. You get a break with live entertainment for just $6. Dozens of emerging troupes get exposure to new audiences. And, in the current show, the taffeta-fetish community gets its moment: Larissa Brewington’s one-act comedy Quality Time is…
Scottsdale is ground zero for $30,000 millionaires. Shiny shirts, spray-on man tans, fake Rolexes, and credit-card debt higher than their spiky, gelled hairdos. These late-night leisure zombies have also infected Tempe and Arcadia, and rumor has it that they’ll stop at nothing in pursuit of fake boobs, nose jobs, and…
Here are some terms rock critics — always in search of fresh rock-critic terms — have used to describe the music/persona of SoCal singer/songwriter Chloe Day: “predatory,” “lethal,” “seductive,” “eerie,” “hypnotic,” “trashy,” “vaguely dangerous.” We’re here to tell you that Day’s not all that, but just a St. Louis refugee…
Reading the story of Taraf Degrief (check out www.tarafdegrief.blogspot.com) is like poring over Jonathan Safran Foer’s abstract, sometimes heartbreaking, and intriguing-as-all-get-out novel Everything Is Illuminated. We’ll spare you the sordid details, but basically, the way-underground musician (born Shmuel Schenderovitch) was trapped inside Prague’s Spanish Synagogue for three days in 1963…
Soccer may be the L.A. Confidential of American sports — underrated, overlooked, and lacking in attendance — but in most other civilized countries (and, yes, a few Stone Age ones) it’s the hottest ticket in town. Latin America’s top soccer teams will compete for national pride, glory, and the $250,000…
Some folks, especially art critics, would call Fausto Fernandez’s latest body of work “mixed-media creations,” a cryptic term that can refer to just about any visual artwork juxtaposing multiple mediums. Text with oil paints. Vinyl shrapnel and dead bugs glued to a cigarette box. Rattlesnake dung smeared on Rothko-esque color…
Back in April, everyone thought the Los Angeles Dodgers would run away with the National League West, and that the San Diego Padres, with their kick-butt pitching staff anchored by Jake Peavy, Chris Young, and All-World closer Trevor Hoffman, were the Dodgers’ only speed bump. Well, as this is being…
Pete Cecere must have one sick crib. Evidently, he designed his pumpkin-colored home in western Virginia so it could house his collection of more than 12,000 pieces of folk art — way impressive considering that the Louvre in Paris currently displays about 35,000 pieces. In 2005, Cecere generously donated 1,000…
Baa Baa Black Sheep: Volume 2 (Universal) Baseball’s Most Unbreakable Feats (Shout!) Batfink: The Complete Series (Shout) Disappearances (Universal) Dora the Explorer: Summer Explorer (Paramount) Degrassi: The Next Generation — Season 5 (Funimation) Dream a Little Dream 2 (Echo Bridge) Driving Lessons (Sony) Eureka: Season One (Universal) Filmation’s Ghostbusters: Volume…
Transformers twiddles its big, fat, stupid robotic thumbs for the better part of two hours before jabbing them into your eye socket and finger-fucking your brain in the last 20 minutes. Yes! It’s torture enough waiting for the iPhone and the second coming of Jesus without wondering when, exactly, this…
Dreams and the Internet, according to the psychotherapist superheroine of Satoshi Kon’s loopy Paprika, are “areas where the repressed conscious mind vents.” Is this not the ideal definition of movies as well? Kon’s head-tripping anime universe, which also includes Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue, is about as obsessive and personal…
Here’s the page where I habitually whine about done-to-death musicals; where I make pissy comments about the dreary state of summer stock; where I bemoan the very existence of dinner theater. This is where I normally complain about having to drive 45 minutes to watch a retread of a super-popular…
When Resident Evil 4 was originally released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2005, the game reinvented a lot of what had grown tiresome about the series. Most obvious were the setting and enemies you faced: Instead of the various building-overrun-by-zombies scenarios that played out in past versions, Resident Evil 4…
Chancer: Series 1 (Acorn) Available solely in the U.K. for years, this is a small-time release featuring a modestly big-time star at the get-go of his career: Clive Owen, looking all of 12 years old and 73 pounds, is a sacked investment banker who winds up in the employ of…
I discovered Valium the other day. I know, I know — where have I been, right? But prescription meds and I don’t get along well, so my recreational drug use has mostly been limited to Scotch and the occasional garden-grown cigarette. Prescribed by my charming new dentist to get me…
Footloose: Kick off your Sunday shoes. No, seriously. Because the stage musical adaptation of Herbert Ross 1984 teen scene flick is back, this time for more than a month at Hale Center Theatre, where teenage rebellion and dance floor angst never die. This drama(!) set to music fell flat on…
Though we would rather swallow a bag of ball bearings than ride a bicycle in this blasted heat, it is nice to have that sweet ride functioning properly. So fix a flat or build a bike from scratch any Sunday at Bike Saviours Co-op, a nonprofit shop that doubles as…
You’ll never bat against blotter-licker Dock Ellis and, well, odds are pretty damn good that you’ll never stand in line to try out for the Diamondbacks. No worries, because you can still swing some wood or aluminum all summer long at the Kiwanis Park Batting Range. The Kiwanis management team…
They say it doesn’t matter what the DJ plays. As long as people are totally wasted, they’ll get out on the dance floor. Lies! A few weeks ago, we watched an entire club clear the decks when OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” came on, proving that no matter how sauced people get,…
You don’t need to wait ´til October’s Arizona State Fair to enjoy sweet rides, Fatty B. Jones eats, and, uh, real America. Just check out Summer Fun Days at Castles N’ Coasters, where a measly 15 bones will get you unlimited rides on the park’s many attractions, including the Sea…
