A&E
Movies
The Not-So-Great ‘Gatsby’
Baz Luhrmann’s novel adaptation chooses 3-D style over substance
May 10th, 2013
Even if it’s true, let’s forget the “great American novel” business regarding The Great Gatsby for a minute. What makes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, published in the spring of 1925 but set three years earlier, such a haunted portrait of a time, a place and a Lost Generation dream? Read more »
Have the Rolling Stones Priced Themselves Out of the Market?
May 9th, 2013
Roll back those ticket prices. Back to zero. Please. I ain’t too proud to beg. Back to zero, like in the days when they were first starting out and playing bars and clubs in and around London, capitalizing on a blues-rock movement that bordered on a pandemic. Since then, the Stones have evolved from an innocent rock and roll band to a red-tongued conglomerate. And they charge a lot for tickets now. Read more »
Stage
Molly Ringwald Sings Jazz
Performing in Vegas fulfills a childhood dream for the former teen actress
May 8th, 2013
Here’s something you probably didn’t know about Molly Ringwald: When she was young, she holed up in her room at night listening to Louis Prima and Keely Smith’s live album from their classic Las Vegas show. Read more »
Showstopper
'Centerfolds of Magic' Features Tricks and Topless Treats
May 8th, 2013
Whoa—are they oh-soooo-sensuously prestidigitating? In public? Performing explicit acts of legerdemain on one another in front of us? Read more »
Art
Robert Beckmann Has Found Creation in Our Desert Destruction
The artist stages an explosive retrospective at Vast Space Projects.
May 7th, 2013
Here’s what 71-year-old artist Robert Beckmann told the next generation of Las Vegas artists at a dinner party: “Do what you don’t know how to do as long as you can. Then finally do what you know how to do just to resolve the damn thing.” Read more »
Movies
UNLV Prof Helped Keep 'The Great Gatsby' Costumers Accurate
May 7th, 2013
Deirdre Clemente combined her passion for vintage fashion with her love of Jazz Age chronicler F. Scott Fitzgerald to become the leading expert in the topic. Little surprise that the associate director of the UNLV public history program was tapped to costume-consult on the upcoming The Great Gatsby. No literary purist, Clemente loves director Baz Luhrmann and can’t wait to see his interpretation of the classic book. Fans of fashion past can visit Clemente’s website FitzgeraldAndFashion.com, or her Vegas Style show at Nevada State Museum at the Springs Preserve through May 31. And, no, she didn’t get to meet Leonardo DiCaprio. Read more »
Soundscraper
BAR 702 Gets Rescued, Loses Old Name
May 7th, 2013
Mark your TV-watching calendar: On July 7, BAR 702 (3355 Spring Mountain Rd.)—the local live-music venue formerly known as the Sand Dollar Lounge—will appear on Spike reality series Bar Rescue. The show involves industry experts observing a struggling bar in action, then offering strategies and overhauls. Read more »
Music
The Sunshine Also Rises
All-woman Vegas band is generating some heat on the music scene. Can it propel them all the way to Canada?
May 7th, 2013
Heidi Guinn, a guitarist for Vegas-based indie band Dusty Sunshine, arranges this gang of colorful, handmade clay fridge magnets on the coffee table. A bowl of spaghetti with a fork, a bright sunflower with leaves, a green cowboy boot with a tiny spur, and most with the band’s name in little rolled clay letters. Far from truck-stop trinkets, these were unique works of art. “It takes me about five hours to make each one of these and I’ve never seen any other band do anything like them,” she says, beaming. “They go for $5 each, and they always sell out.” Add in the cost of materials and Guinn is at it for less than a buck an hour. Read more »
TV
Girls ... With Children
Once you pop out a kid, it’s hard to fit into pop culture
May 7th, 2013
I started thinking about moms in American pop culture, ironically, while watching an episode of Girls. Specifically, it was the scene in which two of the series’ (platonic, female) twenty-something protagonists bond by way of a shared bath. My first thought was, I have never casually bathed with a friend while discussing my relationship problems. My second was, I would literally pay someone if they could guarantee me a bath that no one else would try to climb into. You see, I have a toddler. He is there when I bathe. He is there when I pee. He is always there, like another limb that just happens to lurch around independently of the rest of my body. And he has changed everything. Read more »
Tour Buzz
Tour Buzz: The Rolling Stones, Foreigner and Steely Dan
May 6th, 2013
THE LIKELY LADS: Brand-spanking new music comin’ at ya! The Rolling Stones are scheduled to play at the MGM Grand on May 11 ($150-$750). A quartet of fresh-faced lads from London, the Stones meld disparate influences—blues, rock, psychedelia, even a hint of disco—into an aggressively seductive sound that one can only describe as “Rolling Stones-like.” Perhaps you’ve heard their hit singles “Satisfaction,” “Brown Sugar” or “Start Me Up,” or maybe you’ve seen the band’s guitarist Keith Richards in a cameo role in the Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean movies—but in any case, they’re on their way up. People are talking about the Rolling Stones, wondering they’re going to do with the next 50 years of their career. And after they’ve played this big deal, headlining Vegas show, their long-awaited stardom will surely come. Read more »
