Remember Pete Barbutti? Jack Carter? You will after reading a new book about Elvis that embeds the singer in the Strip's often-unremembered entertainment history.
The singing soars and dancing dazzles. The sets and special effects amaze. Baz – Star Crossed Love is a gorgeous, voluptuous production. It’s also shallow, confusing and emotionally manipulative.
How good is “Criss Angel MINDFREAK Live”? So good that it apparently tore open a spacetime rift and cannonballed Robin Leach through it, as he declares the show, “The No. 1 Magic Show Of All Time!”
It’s kind of a comfortably received academic truism that, yeah, yeah, we Las Vegans drink, cook with and bathe in recycled water. You know it, I know it, sure, but do we really know it?
If the visual tender of the Strip is spectacle — distracting, frenetic, desultory spectacle — then “Akhob” is the opposite of that. Its enveloping bath of light immerses, calms and unifies the faculties.
Weird to say, but the first word that comes to mind when recalling last night’s Paragon Pro Wrestling bash at Sam’s Town is endearing. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s no condescension in that sentiment ...
It seems like the colloquial distractions and entertainments that purport to bring us together — the neighborhood bar, the movie theater, the bowling alley, the music festival — are all turning into private salons.
True visual surprise comes rarely in Vegas. The Strip is a bacchanal that cloys the eye; most of the rest of the cityscape is doing its Late Flat Suburban Americana thing.
