Would that Half-Baked were even as well-done as its title implies. This attempt at a contemporary pothead comedy makes you long for the lightness and subtle urbanity of Up in Smoke. It has, maybe, this much of a claim on authenticity–it really does play like something that was written wasted,…
One of the conceits to which every critic must be genetically predisposed is the idea that, at the end of the day, his or her opinion actually matters. That some unknown phantasm at a nonspecific coffee shop sits immersed in said critic’s latest ill-advised screed, imbibing every word as if…
thursday january 22 Scotland the Brave: Ambrose Bierce defined “kilt” as “a costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen [sic] in America and Americans in Scotland.” His point will probably be amply proved at this presentation starting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, January 22, at America West Arena, 201 East Jefferson, which will…
Given the long partnership that words and pictures have had in the evolution of alphabets and books, it isn’t surprising to find contemporary artists dedicating prints and drawings to a favorite author, or joining writers in the production of limited-edition books and folios. But you rarely see them going to…
With all the brutal competition from the big-ticket films prior to the December 31 Oscar deadline, Hollywood has established a tradition in recent years of dumping lost-cause features during the first few weeks of the year. In 1997, it was the airplane “thriller” Turbulence; in 1996, Bio-Dome and Two If…
Hard Rain doesn’t display a lot of belief in human consistency. In this exceedingly odd little picture, responsible characters are suddenly corrupted into greedy, murderous marauders. People who seem like the salt of the earth are revealed to have been schemers all along. One fellow picks just about the least…
Martin Scorsese’s Kundun is a deeply ceremonial experience, a serene pageant of colors, rituals, costumes. It’s about the Dalai Lama–recognized as the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassion and the spiritual and political leader of Tibet–from his childhood in 1937 through the Chinese invasion in 1949 and his journey…
thursday january 15 Discover Stars on Ice: Kristi Yamaguchi, Scott Hamilton, Ekaterina Gordeeva, Kurt Browning, Katarina Witt, Paul Wylie, Brian Orser and other superstars of the thermally challenged set take the ice, under the direction of Sandra Bezic and Michael Seibert, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, January 15, at America West…
Where would Irish filmmakers these days be without The Troubles? In just the past couple of years, we’ve seen The Crying Game, In the Name of the Father, Michael Collins, Some Mother’s Son and now The Boxer, the latest collaboration between director Jim Sheridan, screenwriter Terry George and actor Daniel…
When was the last time the audience applauded a trailer and the movie lived up to it? Independence Day enticed millions with its preview shot of the White House blown to smithereens, but that film was a dumb, elephantine sci-fi pastiche. The trailer for Wag the Dog, a far more…
thursday january 8 “How Safe Is Our Food Supply?” Luncheon: Arizona Department of Agriculture director Sheldon Jones and California Department of Food and Agriculture secretary Ann Veneman speak about this topic at the Arizona Forum Luncheon at noon Thursday, January 8, at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix Civic Plaza, 122 North…
Abe Jacob, one of the country’s leading theatrical sound designers, has a complaint. Everyone’s a would-be expert about sound. “In a play, especially a musical, the sound is always criticized in one of two ways–either it’s too loud, or why do you need sound at all?” he grumbles. “I never…
It’s been just two years since the Academy nominated the Italian film Il Postino (a.k.a. The Postman) for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. The arrival of Kevin Costner’s epic The Postman raises the possibility of confusion in the Oscar history books–a very slim possibility, a…
There’s no earthly reason we needed a live-action feature version of Mr. Magoo. But since we got one anyway, it should be said that there’s no real excuse for it having turned out so miserably. If a kiddy movie doesn’t even have the charm or inventiveness of the goofy little…
The new Gus Van Sant film Good Will Hunting is like an adolescent’s fantasy of being tougher and smarter and more misunderstood than anybody else. It’s also touchy-feely with a vengeance. Is this the same director who made Mala Noche and Drugstore Cowboy? Those films had a fresh way of…
thursday january 1 Craig Shoemaker at the Improv: The alchemical comedian has transformed a miserable childhood as a hopeless geek into a he-man mint–he was the American Comedy Awards pick for best standup comedian of 1997, he’s slated to host this year’s VH1 game show My Generation, and he’s to…
“Domestic Pottery,” the title of the current show at the Joanne Rapp Gallery, seems less a holiday sales pitch than a lesson in how far the reputation of useful, handmade pottery has sunk in the past 50 years. Praised through mid-century as the art of the people, it was gradually…
If Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown didn’t arrive weighted with post-Pulp Fiction expectations, it might be easier to see it for what it is: an overlong, occasionally funky caper movie directed with some feeling. It’s derived from Elmore Leonard’s 1992 best seller Rum Punch, with the location shifted from Palm Beach,…
The ad line for As Good As It Gets is “a comedy from the heart that goes for the throat.” Isn’t this simply another way of saying, “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll gag”? Jack Nicholson plays, of all things, a prolific romance novelist who’s a virulent xenophobe and a hopeless…
Deconstructing Harry opens riotously with a middle-aged man and his lover–who is also his sister-in-law–surreptitiously coupling at a family get-together. It seems at first that we’re about to be shown the story of this pair (Richard Benjamin and Julia Louis-Dreyfus). But before long, we realize that neither of them is…
thursday december 25 Salvation Army Christmas Dinner: If you’re using this publication for warmth as well as reading material, you may want to drop by this free, open-to-the-public repast in Exhibit Halls A and B at Phoenix Civic Plaza, Second Street and Adams, from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday, December…
You ordinarily wouldn’t consider a cheese-loving Yorkshire inventor named Wallace and his mute dog, Gromit, the stuff of cinematic stardom. But in Toonland, where cults and corporations rise from the zany fiction of talking crickets, mice, ducks, moose, flying squirrels, the Simpsons and their heavy-metal cousins Beavis and Butt-head, just…
