“Let’s sell some tickets!” It’s with this enthusiastic cry that comedian and actor Jay Mohr begins, by phone from L.A., an interview. He’s referring to his upcoming weekend of standup at the Tempe Improv. With the subject’s motives firmly established, the interviewer asks Mohr how life is after Action, this…
Valley resident and standup comic Robert Schimmel’s steadily rising star seems to have accelerated in recent months. Much has happened to him since the knockout performance of his dirty-mouthed, hilarious act on September 18 of last year at the State Theater in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which became an HBO special, Robert…
Called “The Man Who Listens to Horses” — the title of his best-selling 1996 memoir from Random House — Monty Roberts is almost certainly the most famous horse trainer in the world. Or, rather, to use his own new-agey term, he’s a “horse gentler.” Although already renowned in the equestrian…
The central idea behind Brian De Palma’s new space epic Mission to Mars — that the red planet is the source of all earthly life — is being treated in the ads like a revolutionary, provocative sci-fi concept. Yawn. Hardcore enthusiasts of ’50s-era arcana have been there and done that…
The pun “You Gotta Have Art,” as true as it is glib, is the theme of this year’s Scottsdale Arts Festival, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, March 10; the same hours Saturday, March 11; and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, March…
Meat. Fat. Salt. Flour. Potatoes. Cabbage. If this list doesn’t make you drool, German dining probably isn’t for you. If you like green things other than garnishes on your plate, traditional Teutonic food isn’t likely to rise über alles among world cuisines in your estimation. But if you (like me,…
So, let me get this straight. Even after three major film festivals in February — four, if you count the ongoing Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation at Centerpoint (see Repertory Film) — you’re still hungry for more film-festival action? Well, okay, but you’ll have to hit…
“You can be in little small studio thinking only la cucaracha will listen, and it can go all over the world,” says Charo of her acclaimed 1994 album Guitar Passion. Or, rather, “enthuses” Charo. Or, “gushes” Charo. By phone from Los Angeles, she describes performing recently for an international convention…
A late addition to the repertory company headed by A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, Tigger has enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years. That is, the Disney incarnation of Tigger has — the hyperactive, striped feline with the spring-loaded tail in Disney’s Winnie the…
“May I smoke?” Agnieszka Holland asks. It’s a gracious request, considering that she’s sitting in her own hotel room, during a recent visit to Phoenix. Of course, her interviewer tells her; after all, where would a Polish director be without a cigarette in hand? “Yes,” she replies, lighting up. “I…
For those who aren’t film-festivaled out after last weekend’s New Times Flashback Film Festival or the Phoenix Jewish Film Festival, this week there’s the fourth annual Phoenix International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, this year titled “Out Far!” The venue is Harkins Camelview 5, located on Goldwater Boulevard north of…
February must be film-festival season here in the Valley. You can’t swing a dead movie geek — though it’s worth a try — without hitting a festival. The first of at least three February fests is the New Times Flashback Film Fest, a blowout of faves, with one obscure curio,…
Many of us latter-day Arizona settlers fled the northeast precisely because we found the words “winter” and “fest” don’t go together well. But for those who are nostalgic for biting cold, punishing winds and treacherous snow, Flagstaff Winterfest is here again. The 14th annual chill-out to the north kicks off…
The computer-animated kiddy feature Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists aspires to nothing more than Saturday-matinee thrills for the preadolescent crowd. The obvious direct source for the content is the cycle of Sinbad the Sailor fantasies — The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) and…
Greektown, 8519 North Seventh Street, 602-674-8881. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 4 p.m.; Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m. Ever heard the story of Tantalus? Well, gather ’round, kiddies, here’s the grim fairy…
The first space opera of the year 2000, Supernova, turns out to be more nostalgic than futuristic. There isn’t an idea in this brief, handsomely produced actioner that isn’t a sci-fi chestnut. Event Horizon, Aliens, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, even The Fly all…
This state came late to the national observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day — Monday, January 17, this year — but now that we participate, there’s no shortage of events. Here are a few of the Valley’s celebrations: In Phoenix: • ASU West hosts its annual MLK Celebration Week…
Daah . . . daaaah . . . daaaaah . . . DAH-DUM!! (boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom) . . . Yeah, get used to it. Just as the recent new year’s celebration got us plenty sick of the Artist Who Back When He Still Had Some Vestige of Sanity Was…
“Feast your eyes, glut your soul, on my accursed ugliness!” So howled Erik, the disfigured denizen of the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera, when the heroine Christine Daae couldn’t resist snatching away his mask, in Gaston Leroux’s Le Fantome de l’Opera, the penny dreadful that served as the basis for…
You hope for Dorothy Lamour, reclining against a palm tree in her sarong, when you hear the title The Hurricane. Instead, you get well more than two hours of Denzel Washington huddled in a cell. In the poster art, Washington glowers out, one bandaged fist cocked for a right to…
It’s the 29th time around for the Valley’s own football classic, the Fiesta Bowl, and as usual it’s the pretext for a slate of fun stuff around the Valley, including the East Valley’s major New Year’s celebration. Here are a few of the weekend’s other diversions: Downtown Scottsdale’s Fiesta Bowl…
East Valley party-heads have the Fiesta Bowl Block Party (see Snafu 2000). For the downtowners, there’s the City of Phoenix’s big and controversial Phoenix Celebration 2000, slated from 4 p.m. Friday, December 31, through 1 a.m. Saturday, January 1, 2000, or through the End of Civilization As We Know It,…
