Buck Amok

5/13-5/14Generally, if you mention the letters PBR, it’s cause for ears to perk up in hopes of a crisp snap of the tab that pops open a cold one. Well, it won’t be that PBR, but there surely could be some snapping sounds, mainly those of human bones, when the…

Public Display

5/13-5/28As much as guys try to get two girls to make out in front of them, there are still men in the world who’ll throw punches instead of dollars at the sight of a same-sex snog. A man wandering through a New York park serves as a prime example in…

Gun Ho

5/14-6/8You may have heard the adage “opinions are like assholes — everybody’s got one.” When it comes to the issue of gun control, there are definitely a lot of people who don’t like the smell of other people’s assholes. And while not everybody views the issue in black and white…

This Week’s Day-by-day Picks

THU 12 So you ate paint chips as a kid? Well, that explains a lot. But while the art hanging in Scottsdale’s Marshall Way galleries on Thursday, May 12, might be good enough to eat, please refrain from returning to your childhood eating habits. The Bon Appetit ArtWalk features special…

We’re No Angels

Much of Crash, an L.A.-stories portmanteau about the suffocating embrace of racism, is hard to watch, harder still to listen to. Its characters — the creations of co-writer and director Paul Haggis but also of people who live next door and perhaps even inside of you — say and do…

War: What Is It Good For?

Whatever you do, don’t accuse Ridley Scott of turning his back on a fight. Doesn’t matter if it’s slimy-fanged space aliens attacking Sigourney Weaver, Roman slaves in tough against hungry lions down at the Colosseum, or American GIs going at it with Somali insurgents. Sir Ridley is always happy to…

Wax Off

The new House of Wax — a remake, pretty much in name only, of the 1953 Vincent Price movie (itself a remake of a 1933 film) — manages to be gruesome and grisly, but it falls well short of being truly creepy, much less terrifying. Horror aficionados expecting the chills…

Shock and Awful

It is no great joy to review Palindromes, the latest film from writer-director Todd Solondz, who is loved by those who do not loathe him for such movies as Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, and Storytelling. Advance word had Palindromes as Solondz’s most shocking film, which seemed impossible, given its…

Hawg Heaven

Andrew Wise isn’t a biker. But he’ll live the life this weekend — along with at least 15,000 to 20,000 biker dudes and chicks — at the inaugural Cycle de Mayo at the Lake Pleasant Harbor Marina. Wise, owner of Banana Communications and producer of the event, dreamed up the…

Lords of the Rink

It’s do-or-die time for Seth Riveras, as the 14-year-old plummets down one of Phoenix Skate Park’s six-foot bankramps on his skateboard, blasting blindly toward a thigh-high obstacle known as a pyramid. Seconds before colliding with the trapezoid, Riveras pops his ride skyward, flying over any danger while the board spins…

Pretty Dorky

5/5-5/6 Laurie Notaro is ecstatic that so many women want to be certified “idiots.” But give her a break, already. “People are totally mad at me,” says the author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, who makes appearances in Tempe and Phoenix, respectively, on Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May…

Night Moves

SAT 5/7 To some, a “nighttime art run” consists of a mobile graffiti spree with the intent of tagging the maximum number of block walls before dawn. But don’t expect many aerosol paint-toting runners at the Night Run for the Arts, since the event is not about turf boundaries, but…

Big Draw

SAT 5/7 There’s a myth that nothing free is worth having. Tell that to the thousands of comic book fans who will stand in line for hours to get their paws on complimentary comics on “Free Comic Book Day,” happening Saturday, May 7. More than 3,000 comic shops worldwide will…

Full Nelson

SUN 5/8 Willie Nelson’s career has evolved from silky-voiced crooner in the 1960s to pot-smoking hell-raiser in the 1970s and ’80s to critically acclaimed country legend in the aughts. You might figure that’s a semi-natural progression for artists who’ve been around for the span of five decades. But that’s just…

What a Sight

Gifted playwright alert: Donald Margulies is in town, or at least one of his better plays is, in time to help wind up what’s turned out to be a mediocre season and to remind us of what we’d have lost if the troubled Actors Theatre had succumbed to its recent…

This Week’s Day-by-day Picks

THU 5 Nothing beats a good shag. In the ’30s and ’40s, all the hip cats were doing it, and they were using bad lines like, “Hi, sugar, are you rationed?” They still got girls to shag with them all night. And swing with them. Of course, they probably did…

Love to Hate Me

I love hate mail. Next to the envelope that arrives at my home each week filled with what screenwriter Joseph Mankiewicz once called “the most restful shade of green,” getting hate mail is the best part of my job. I’m nuts for letters written by angry actors whose work I’ve…

This Week’s Day-by-day Picks

THU 28 Still thumping “Hey Jealousy” from your Dodge Laser and mouthing “The Gin Blossoms are sooo fresh” to a carload of babes at the stoplight? Time to hightail it to Martini Ranch, 7295 East Stetson Drive in Scottsdale, on Thursday, April 28, for New Times New Music, which starts…

It’s Not Just Tequila

Want to know what’s spicing up the night on Cinco de Mayo? Put away the blender and the salt and head to one of the more than 100 celebrations and activities taking place all over the Valley. We have everything from parties south of the border to kid-friendly fiestas. But…

Art Scene

“Street Credibility”: Diane Arbus stars in an exhibition that puts her photos alongside the work of photographers who influenced her, and the ones who followed in her footsteps. The exhibition fails to show how the accidental strangeness of documentary photography morphed into the deliberate strangeness of art photography, because in…

A Little Italy

Marcia Myers grooves on color, texture and ancient Italy. Her abstract diptychs and triptychs — artspeak for paintings made of two or three panels attached to one another — are floating fields of sun-soaked Mediterranean color that will remind you of an ancient Roman villa crossed with a cool, downtown…

Shallow Storyteller

Virgil Ortiz, ceramicist, fashion designer and Cochiti Pueblo Indian, makes visual mash-ups by putting designs inspired by traditional tribal pottery in contemporary places. In “La Renaissance Indigène” at the Heard Museum, Ortiz’s black-and-white swirls, lines and animals show up on purses, corsets and skirts; in a jerky black-and-white video; and…