For the past decade or so, our local theater season has kicked off with a musical comedy rerun, courtesy of Phoenix Theatre Company. This year, upstart Ensemble Theatre has upstaged PT’s tradition by launching its first full season with a swell production of a crafty Craig Lucas comedy. Reckless, which…
“You and me?” asks catcher Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly) of his old friend, veteran pitcher Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner). “One more time?” It’s a poignant moment, the top of what may be the last game of Chapel’s career before he’s either traded or quits the game he’s loved and…
Since his TV show ended, Martin Lawrence has gotten more ink for his off-camera life than for his movie career. There’s nothing about Blue Streak that is likely to change that. It’s a shame, because the basic plot — which sounds like something from one of Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder…
Modern word processing has made life easier for screenwriters: no need to retype some old classic with your own little changes; nowadays you can just download the screenplay for, let’s say, The Exorcist, search for “adolescent girl,” replace with “twentysomething single woman,” and — voilà! — you’ve got a brand-new…
Let’s imagine the apocalypse has come; our world is about to end. As the final human inhabitants of this planet, we need to think about what we will leave for those creatures who may come after us. Our mission should be to find some way to preserve Laura Hendrie’s novel…
Van Gogh got it from sunflowers and Gaugin from naked island women. Andy Warhol got his from a can of Campbell’s soup. From sources no less diverse came the inspiration for the artists contributing to “Color Rage! Spectrum-Bursting Quilts,” on exhibit at Chandler Center for the Arts through Friday, October…
Beneath swirling lights and a disco ball, cowboy hats tower over the other heads. Mocha-colored young women in up-to-the-moment attire throw pelvis alongside fresh-faced couples and open-shirted Latin lovers with Ramon Navarro mustaches. One arch-backed pair grope one another, his thigh her crotch, her hand his, while keeping even beat…
Whether it’s bad or good commercial luck that the thriller Stir of Echoes follows so closely on the heels of The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan’s wildly successful ghost-story sleeper, it’s bad critical luck. The film has some startling parallels with The Sixth Sense: Both concern psychic communication with the…
It’s bad enough when a major studio — in this case Warner Bros. — blows $40 million (or more) on a by-the-numbers film. It’s worse when they blow it on a by-the-numbers film made by people who don’t know how to count. We’re not talking literal math here, but rather…
In the early Eighties, a guy named John McCain moved to Mesa to run for Congress. When opponents cried “carpetbagger,” McCain simply told them — and anyone else who would listen — that the longest he’d ever lived any place in his life was five and a half years, the…
Although David W. Rintels’ Clarence Darrow: A One-Man Play — adapted from Irving Stone’s novel Clarence Darrow for the Defense — is best-known as a ’70s-era stage vehicle for Henry Fonda, Paradise Valley resident Leslie Nielsen has also enjoyed much success in the role, touring his native Canada with the…
When last we encountered Peter and Bobby Farrelly, they were pelting moviehouses with industrial-strength jokes about retarded kids, lost semen, found excrement and exploding house pets. Good plan. There’s Something About Mary turned into last summer’s surprise hit and catapulted the brothers to the top of Hollywood’s A List –…
Fortune has smiled on Brendan Fraser. The star of the new Dudley Do-Right may just have the most pleasant lot of any young male actor in American movies right now. He looks great in or out of his clothes, he has an easy, self-effacing likability on screen, and, maybe most…
It seems like only yesterday that movies dealing with gay and lesbian life were synonymous with extravagant displays of gloom and doom. From the suicides of The Children’s Hour and Advise and Consent to the serial killers of Cruising and Basic Instinct, same-sexuality was no fun — in the worst…
In a roundabout way, the Great Arizona Puppet Theater has the state’s foot-dragging bureaucracy to thank for its new home. Some history: The troupe has stuck together through five moves since it was founded in 1983 and home was a central Phoenix firehouse. Back then, the troupe poured much of…
Demonstrating that anthropology is one of the liveliest and broadest of sciences seems to be the objective of the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival. Nine of the diverse cultural documentaries from the American Museum of Natural History’s fest, named for the much-admired anthropologist, are to be shown during September…
What is it they say — that even a flea can reach Mount Olympus riding in Pegasus’ mane? Well, in the case of the new Albert Brooks comedy The Muse, Brooks is the flea and Pegasus is his delectable co-star, Sharon Stone. But I get ahead of myself. In The…
As a filmmaker, actor John Turturro clearly believes in drawing from personal experience: His directorial debut, the 1992 Mac (which won the Camera D’Or at Cannes), was avowedly based on his father’s life. For his second feature, Illuminata, Turturro takes a look at the theater, showing us the ambitions, fears…
There is something fairy-tale-like, but also deeply human, about Twin Falls Idaho, a gentle, beautifully realized tale of love and intimacy that marks the feature film debut of Mark Polish and Michael Polish. Identical twin brothers, Mark Polish wrote the script, Michael Polish directed it, and both brothers star. It…
When she dislocated her knee a few years ago, the busy local stage actress Cindy Wynn had no reason to assume that it would prove a turning point in her career and life. But when what appeared to be a minor injury didn’t get better, and when she was diagnosed…
If Dave Alvin hadn’t written or sung another note after 1986, his place in rock ‘n’ roll history would still be secure. As a founding member of Los Angeles’ seminal roots-rock revivalists the Blasters, and a guitarist for L.A. proto-punks X (and their acoustic offshoot the Knitters), Alvin has been…
La Potencias Africanas (The African Potencies) is housed in a small cinder-block building on East Van Buren. On the building’s outer east wall is a sun-baked mural of the seven African powers surrounding their divine savior. Inside, one can purchase religious icons, bits of African folk art, candles, oils, rosaries,…
