Winner of the Dramatic Audience Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Maria Full of Grace is an uncomfortably realistic look at a 17-year-old Colombian woman who, desperate for a job, agrees to swallow capsules of heroin and transport them to New York. Although a work of fiction, the film…
Those of us who have grown up in the United States may be weary of our country’s claims of freedom and opportunity. Faced with a wobbly quote from our leader attributing terrorism to envy, we might roll our eyes, aware of a reality far darker and more complex. But there…
You know how fear is scary? Well, director E. Elias Merhige is into that, especially in his new serial-killer thriller Suspect Zero. Absent, however, is the dark-comic malevolence the director smartly cultivated in his successful and disquieting Shadow of the Vampire a few years ago, bullied and bulldozed out of…
Hell hath no fury like a wanna-be filmmaker scorned. After being left in financial ruin by a Nashville investment banker nearly 18 years ago, Dan Wilkins dreamed up a multitude of elaborate revenge fantasies to get even with the man who did him wrong, many of which would’ve landed him…
Sat 8/28 Silver-tongued politicos love speaking in glittering generalities, spewing their easily digestible catch phrases like, “I’m reporting for duty,” or, “Moving America forward.” Local activist Jeff Falk has another catch phrase, one that communicates the message behind the “Farewell Party for George W,” on Saturday, August 28, at the…
8/27-9/18 It’s hard not to fall in love with a sweet transsexual Transylvanian whose sole purpose is growing the perfect sex toy. While he (using the pronoun loosely) might be a hero to some, he’s also The Rocky Horror Show’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a naughty heathen clad in fishnets and obsessed…
Plenty of Olympic athletes trained in Phoenix for the summer games, and we even managed to send some locals to compete in Athens this month. But the Valley’s truest distinction at the Olympics is the presence of little Gabriela Cruz, one of only a handful of McDonald’s employees from across…
Picture me, just this once, wearing a shiny turban anchored with a big paste jewel. I’m sitting before a tiny, round, velvet-covered table, gazing into a crystal ball. The ball is filled with all kinds of swirling pastel lights and a bunch of purple glitter that occasionally morphs into shapes…
It should go without saying that when one goes to see a movie about giant killer snakes, the main point of the whole endeavor is to watch people get eaten by giant killer snakes. Hardly rocket science, that. But while Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid does feature a…
A displaced mother and daughter beg for food in India, where women and children make up 75 percent of refugees. A homeless Ethiopian woman clutches her baby, fighting the chill of winter from the newborn’s tiny body. A woman slaves away on a plantation in south Asia. The images are…
Fri 8/27 Adult puppetry is all the rage these days, but the folks at Skeleton Puppetry Theatre don’t think the genre’s sexual innuendo or macabre humor would have any appeal outside the nightspots of downtown Phoenix. “This stuff is more for late-night crowds,” says puppeteer Nathan Greene. “It’s definitely after-dark…
8/27-8/28 It’s dawned on us — while pondering this weekend’s Vans Triple Crown of Freestyle Motocross at America West Arena –that there is much in this world of considerable irrelevance, pardon the contradiction in terms. Case in point: tires on a dirt bike at AWA, 201 East Jefferson, on Friday,…
Xicanindio at Tempe Public Library: Tucked away upstairs in the Tempe Public Library are prints from local and regional Latino/Chicano and Native American artists produced at Mesa’s tiny but vibrant Xicanindio Artes. Xicanindio is more than just a place for artists to make prints — it’s one of the surprisingly…
THU 19 Going back to school sounds like a perfect reason to panic; if we remember the nightmare correctly, we show up late, ill-prepared and naked. This calls for a field trip to Anderson’s Fifth Estate, 6830 East Fifth Avenue in downtown Scottsdale, where the panic! Back to School Party…
It’s too easy to label Rachel Bess dark. After all, the 24-year-old artist harbors an obvious obsession with mortality. Her artwork is more still-dead than still-life, often incorporating fragments of animal skeletons or human skulls, and the bleak landscapes she paints, with titles like The Nightmare, have earned the moniker…
Fri 8/20 What if Spider-Man 2 or The Bourne Supremacy had skipped out on Phoenix movie theaters? Madness would take to the streets. Yet fans cope as independent films regularly bypass silver screens around the Valley. Beginning Friday, August 20, one of six indie flicks will premi’re each week exclusively…
The future is almost here. At least, it is according to screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce (Pandaemonium) and director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People), two cinematic visionaries whose combined vision in Code 46 sparks tremendous intrigue — and unrest. At once a weirdly familiar sci-fi trip, a bleak romance, a…
Summer movies don’t get much sillier or more empty-headed than Without a Paddle, and that includes Catwoman and King Arthur. What we have here is a low-wattage buddy flick proposing that a trio of boyhood friends, now 30 years old, can shed the last vestiges of their adolescence by traipsing…
Although most people in the moviegoing universe by now know the differences between an “Alien” and a “Predator,” putting the two critters together in one movie really ought to necessitate more specific species names for each, since both are technically aliens and predators (they’re from outer space and they hunt…
Randall Wallace is a curious guy. Raised in Tennessee and schooled at Duke, he put himself through a year of divinity school by teaching karate, wrote songs for a while in Nashville, and managed shows at Opryland. Then he kicked into high gear by writing the script for Mel Gibson’s…
Those zany kids at Stray Cat Theatre have strapped a leash onto their new season, which they’re opening with something called Poona, the Fuckdog — a title as compelling as it is unprintable, at least in Phoenix. “The Rep has Poona, the (Expletive) Dog,” laughs Stray Cat’s artistic director Ron…
Sat 8/21 Existence, the Buddha says, is suffering; proof positive according to students of Eastern mysticism that he spends his Sundays moonlighting as an Arizona Cardinals fan. Despite an unrivaled string of losing seasons, hope once again springs eternal in Redbird Country, for from the ashes of the Stallings, Bugel,…
