If Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence were a live-action sequel, there would be a lot of gossip about star histrionics, creative conflicts and so forth. Since the original Ghost in the Shell, first released nearly 10 years ago, made an anime icon out of its star, the frequently nude…
Arizonans love to share holidays with Mexico. Or maybe they just love to party. For years, Cinco de Mayo has been a Valley beer blowout, as residents chug cheap Coronas in celebration of . . . what? You probably think Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s Independence Day, but it’s not…
Say you’re some hotshot Hollywood producer who wants to churn out the next big, edgy drug flick. You’ve already gone the logical route and cast Johnny Depp, but the script to your nascent narco movie feels pretty white-bread and smacks more of Go than Blow. Whaddaya do? If you’re across…
Wed 9/22 Gene Simmons ain’t got nothing on Count Smokula. While both showmen are face-painted night crawlers with ungodly long tongues, the Smokula’s more of a vaudevillian-style villain and musical comedian, who’ll fire off one-liners in machine-gun fashion when he bites into The Trunk Space, 1506 Grand Avenue, on Wednesday,…
Tue 9/21 Rasslin’ just ain’t what it used to be. Ever since The Rock became the Scorpion King of Hollywood and Steve Austin got “stone cold” feet and quit the biz, most fans have tended to come dressed as chairs at World Wrestling Entertainment events across the country. Whenever Vince…
9/17-9/22 Democrats might have halcyon memories of JFK and Camelot, but we’re betting you cigar aficionados think ol’ Jack can just cram it. When the 35th president put that trade embargo on Cuba back in ’61, he kept you from the love of your leaf. Just ask Richard “Mick” Connors,…
Ryan Singer is a Native American painter, but don’t confuse him with R.C. Gorman or some other traditionalist you see hanging in downtown Scottsdale galleries. Toss a hit or two of acid at Gorman, and you’re getting close. Singer grew up on the Navajo reservation. Today he paints in a…
THU 9 Sure, the Bard charmed our pants off (along with fair Gwyneth’s) when he was Shakespeare in Love, but — let’s face it — most of the time, he was Shakespeare in a Homicidal Mindset. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern — just two of the casualties in the blood bath that…
Any second now, Phoenix is going to start looking a lot more like Tucson. That is, if County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and Youth Program Supervisor Jessica Martin have anything to say about it. They’re the folks behind Las Artes de Maricopa County, a new youth-at-risk program that swaps GED…
October 31, 1977: Tonight was extremely strange. Janette and I went to the Sombrero Theater (which is way down on Seventh Street and Camelback, kind of a scary part of town) to see Phantom of the Paradise. Janette has seen Phantom 37 times! I’ve never known anyone who has seen…
There is nothing mysterious or subdued about Stacy Peralta’s enthusiasms. A product of Southern California’s vivid beach scene, he’s been a surfer since boyhood and was a professional skateboarder in the ’70s before he started making documentaries about the defining moments of those sports. The phenomenally successful Dogtown and Z-Boys…
The most crucial piece of equipment in Hollywood is obviously not the movie camera. It’s not the casting couch. Not even the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud or the personal trainer. It’s the Xerox machine — which was preceded by carbon paper. That’s why, over the years, we have had three Mrs…
Rocky Horror, eat your heart out. Or just leave it to the cult followers and cutups behind Broadway Bound and Gagged’s shadowcast production of Cannibal! The Musical, set for Saturday, September 11, at Spectrum Mall. “If it’s up to my doing,” says Cannibal casting director Justin Reed, “it will be…
Sandra Conaty Brace was an active woman. She mastered the 55-word short story, had several published, cared for her 25 cats, and worked as an administrative assistant for Risk Insurance Solutions. On September 10, 2001, Brace took the day off to do chores and watch Judge Judy. When her husband…
9/9-10-15 Wanna show your boss who’s boss? Take a lunchtime excursion to the Arizona State University Computing Commons Gallery, on Palm Walk and Orange Mall on the main campus in Tempe, beginning Thursday, September 9, when the interactive installation “AlphaWolf” opens. Sure, howling, growling and whining into a microphone while…
Sat 9/11 The Arizona Caliente have much to prove on Saturday, September 11, when the Women’s Professional Football League team takes on its nemesis from last year’s Western Conference title game, the Long Beach Aftershock, in a match-up of division leaders at Washington High School, 2217 West Glendale Avenue in…
Sat 9/11 Avast ye landlubbers, just a week in advance of “International Talk Like a Pirate Day,” those bilge-sucking sons-of-biscuit-eaters at the Paper Heart, 750 Grand Avenue, will be busting out like Blackbeard at “Mermaids and Martinis” on Saturday, September 11. This “undersea fantasy fund raiser” for iTheatre Collaborative is…
9/10-9/24 There’s arguably nothing inherently funny about being a Latino immigrant struggling in America. So forgive us if a one-man show of monologues chronicling immigration hassles and low self-esteem under a post-September 11 backdrop doesn’t immediately lighten our mood. Unless that comedic romp happens to be the follow-up to the…
“The Landmine Prints” at Burton Barr Central Library: ASU professor John Risseeuw’s unique approach to printmaking includes what he calls “content-specific paper” — handmade paper composed of materials that relate to the topic of the artwork itself. Risseeuw brings together more than a dozen such works in “The Landmine Prints”…
THU 2 We have a right to be crabby. We were born on the last day of Cancer, as was David Spade, and he got all the looks, all the talent and all the good scripts. Thank the heavens we hold no responsibility for our own success. So says “professional…
Last fall, at a banquet held at a private country club in north Scottsdale, Arizona State University President Michael Crow stood before a gathering of A-plus middle school students enrolled in the prestigious Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and did his darnedest to convince the gifted kids and their…
With some notable exceptions, you won’t find the folk art now appearing in “Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art” at Phoenix Art Museum popping up in your average Mexican mercado. Having beaten the bushes in backwaters all over Mexico for various forms of folk art for 25 years, I feel…
