Annie Duke’s Conquering Online Poker (Big Vision) The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Megaset (A&E) Battle’s Poison Cloud (Cinema Libre) Bleak House (BBC Warner) Camara Oscura (Warner Bros.) Charmed: The Complete Fourth Season (Paramount) Death Tunnel (Sony) The Hobart Shakespeareans (Docurama) The Ice Harvest (MCA) The Lords of Discipline (Paramount)…
Didn’t Richard Donner retire? A 1980s star-director name, among many, that should now send bolts of discouraging dread down your spine, Richard Donner may well be seeing his filmmaking skills peak with 16 Blocks — even if saying it’s his best, least flatulent, most efficient film is tantamount to saying…
It should be too early in the year to expect a good movie, let alone a great one; anything released prior to the Oscars is bound to be forgotten by spring. Yet here it is, the first — dare we use the term that’s all but been stripped of meaning…
What do little girls want? If we are to follow the emotional heart of Aquamarine, a new film about two 13-year-olds who help a runaway mermaid fall in love, the answer is . . . bling. Hailey (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, pretty much a Lindsay Lohan ringer) and Claire (Emma Roberts)…
The world première of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party at the Toronto International Film Festival last September had the vibe of a sold-out concert — all those spotlights beaming to and fro in front of a venerable old theater, all that pushing and shoving for the best seats, all those celebs…
If you’re a parent trying to teach your sullen teenage kids that movies with subtitles aren’t all bad, try taking them to see Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor). Like Christophe Gans’ The Brotherhood of the Wolf or Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this is a foreign-language film that proves that…
Gregory Sale, 44, has made all sorts of art. He’s done performance pieces, he’s worked in fabric, paint, wood, found objects, epoxy resin, you name it. He works out of a studio in his downtown Phoenix home. He’s also the visual arts director at the Arizona Arts Commission, where he’ll…
Last fall, Microsoft hyped its pricey Xbox 360 by promising to reinvent gaming as we know it. The blockbuster “next generation” titles were supposed to harness the machine’s awesome power to deliver high-definition graphics and impossibly realistic action. But a funny thing happened on the way to the future. The…
Walk the Line (Fox) No matter what a junkie does with his spare time — say, redefine country music, or forge one of history’s most enduring personas — movies about junkies are a drag to watch. So it’s too bad this Johnny Cash biopic is a by-the-numbers fall-and-redemption tale. A…
“Sensual Pleasures” at the Herberger Gallery: Phoenix artist Jeanne Collins’ installation Biopsy Banquet is the standout in this group show of predictable erotic-themed pieces. Her gleefully grotesque feast fit for Hannibal Lecter consists of ceramic entrees made from human organs. There’s Stomach l’orange with Sliced Beets and Green Beans, Lungs…
If you have any awareness at all of the existence of Running Scared — no, not the Gregory Hines/Billy Crystal cop buddy comedy, but the new film written and directed by Wayne Kramer — chances are you have but one question: How in God’s name does anyone expect us to…
Tommy Lee Jones’ feature directorial debut is probably much as you’d expect: a blast of nostalgia that nonetheless accepts the realities of modernity, which isn’t surprising coming from an actor who’s getting up there in years but has found more fame as an old man than as a young’un. The…
Unlike most of us, award-winning photographer Timothy Archibald isn’t content just wondering what a giant mechanical two-headed penis machine looks like. He wants to take pictures of it. He wants to interview the guy who built it. Which is exactly what the former Phoenix New Times staff photographer has done…
Okay, so you never miss an episode of The Golden Girls. It’s telecast pretty much constantly — the Lifetime network airs about a dozen episodes of the popular ’80s sitcom every day — and you never miss the show about four grumpy old bags who sit around their Florida condo…
Sony’s approach with its handheld, the PlayStation Portable, is to carbon-copy its most popular titles for on-the-go gaming. “Enjoy Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 2?” Sony seems to ask. “Well, here’s a version for the PSP. Oh, you’re a SOCOM fan? Super, we’ve got that on PSP too.” With the…
All the President’s Men(Warner Bros.) It’s no mystery why Warner Bros. chose to rerelease All the President’s Men now; at last we know how much — which is to say how little — Mark “Deep Throat” Felt really looked like Hal Holbrook. A new doc on former FBI second-in-command Felt…
Kimberly Akimbo: David Lindsay Abaire’s cautionary tale about a teenager with a rare condition that causes her body to age faster than it should was a runaway smash when it debuted in Manhattan a few years ago. The author of Wonder of the World, an early hit for Stray Cat…
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (MCA) The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends (Shout Factory) Domino (New Line) Dorian Blues (TLA) First Descent (Universal) Left of the Dial (HBO) The Memory of a Killer (Sony) Midnight Cowboy: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Collector’s Edition (Sony)…
You would think a show full of candy-colored Andy Warhol pictures of Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe and designer shoes would be all froth and fun. Think again. The 97 Warhol prints in “Andy Warhol’s Dream America,” a traveling exhibition at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, carry a larger, darker…
Freedomland manages a seemingly impossible feat: It’s both turgid and overwrought, eliciting the shriek that fades into a yawn without anyone ever noticing. It’s a wholly dreary piece of work, yet another dismal entry on the résumé of director Joe Roth, an only-in-Hollywood hack who’s allowed to make movies –…
Penguins, schmenguins. If you want some new insight into the codes of animal behavior, have a look at Eight Below, an inspirational adventure in which a team of sled dogs marooned in Antarctica fights to survive winter without benefit of man or Milk-Bone. In the process, the intrepid furry heroes…
It happens so often these days. A comedy opens with clever jokes, endearing characters, and an enjoyably brisk pace, all of which put you at ease. This’ll be fun, you think, settling into your chair. Someone trustworthy is driving, so let’s enjoy the ride. And then, just when you thought…
