Independence Day isn’t dull–it holds the attention for all of its 144 minutes. Sometimes, it does so through the shocking gracelessness of its dialogue, or the weird jumble of its cast, or the simple astonishment over what cliches it isn’t above trying to put past us, but it never bores…
Misfit kids–nerds, loners, class clowns–have a rough time of it in school, but for many of them, the ultimate payoff is considerable: They sometimes get to grow up to be rock stars, novelists, Nobel laureates, stand-up comedians, computer tycoons and, of course, filmmakers. (The luckiest of them get to be…
good character Ronald McDonald: The burger-chain spokesjester clowns around with his public on Thursday, July 11, at Ocotillo Branch Library, 102 West Southern (call 262-6694); on Monday, July 15, at Glendale City Council Chambers, 5850 West Glendale Avenue (930-3437); and on Tuesday, July 16, at Yucca Branch Library, 5648 North…
thursday july 11 Nico-Icon: Director Susanne Ofteringer’s documentary tells tales on the late, Berlin-born Nico (real name: Christa Paffgen), model, actress, Teutonic chanteuse, Andy Warhol cohort, short-lived Velvet Undergrounder and, in the bitter end, a star-crossed junkie who embodied the Velvets’ tune “Black Angel’s Death Song.” The unrated film’s run…
Bill Rocz, the movie critic and celebrity interviewer for KPHO-TV, died last week after an excruciatingly long struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. A well-known and -liked Arizona media personality, the on-air Rocz epitomized wholesomeness as a sort of dapper, toupeed, mellifluous square. Hosting KPHO’s Hollywood Greats and Family Classics, he…
This much can be said about Striptease, anyway: It comes closer to capturing the spirit, if not the stature, of Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders than the current film that appropriates that masterwork’s title. As one woman forced into a shady lifestyle to another, Defoe’s resourceful, foolish, lusty, pious, magnificently human…
Andy Warhol and his circle of ’60s scenemakers are the focus of a cinematic renaissance. I Shot Andy Warhol detailed the attempted assassination of the pop artist by would-be feminist visionary Valerie Solanas. Basquiat, coming soon, features David Bowie as the pale media manipulator of the mid-’70s. And currently at…
thursday july 4 Fabulous Phoenix Fourth featuring the Mavericks, and Junior Brown: Two healthy doses of fine, neotraditionalist country–Raul Malo’s Florida-based Mavs and Texas’ bodacious Brown–are on tap at this 11th annual blowout on the grounds of the Arizona State Capitol, 17th Avenue and Washington. Mandy Barnett shares the main…
loud and proud Children’s Patriotic Parade: Uncle Sam will be on hand, as will the Toy Soldier Band, at this sixth annual troop through Christown Mall, 19th Avenue and Bethany Home. It starts at 1 p.m. Thursday, July 4, in Center Court; costumes are encouraged, as are appropriately decorated wagons…
In the 20 years that Mark Klett has been making pictures of the American West, his photographs have come to symbolize its ongoing revision in the American mind. No longer an eternal paradise of opportunity and natural splendor, it has become a lesson in the rub between the two. Take…
When Five Women Wearing the Same Dress played earlier this season at In Mixed Company, it was greeted with such hosannas that it now has been transferred to the relatively bigtime venue of Stage West at Herberger Theater Center. Mercifully, I was away during the original engagement and so, innocent…
At the end of the 1939 film of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Hunchback gazes down from the bell tower of the title edifice at his beloved Esmeralda–Maureen O’Hara, who could make any man feel a bit deformed and subhuman. He’s saved her life repeatedly, yet there…
among the animals Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus: See Wednesday in Pic Hits. Summer Days and Nights at Phoenix Zoo: The menagerie, 455 North Galvin Parkway, in Papago Park, hosts its final “Sunset Safari” adventure from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 28. The event features train rides,…
thursday june 27 Lysistrata: Mike Fenlason’s Mercury Theater, dedicated to producing classic works with a contemporary spin, takes a vaudevillian approach to one of the all-time classics, Aristophanes’ wonderful antiwar comedy. Written more than two millenniums ago, and rarely matched for pure wit in the ensuing span, Lysistrata is about…
dino might Robosaurus: The auto-munching, true-life Transformer puts in an appearance at Phoenix Boys & Girls Herbert Kieckhefer Club, 548 West Southern, from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, June 21, as a prelude to its “performance” on Saturday, June 22, at the Ford Motor Company Jets Versus Funny Cars Extravaganza…
thursday june 20 Grand Canyon State Games: The fourth annual Olympics-style competition for recreational athletes of all ages and ability levels kicks off with opening ceremonies at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 20, at America West Arena, First Street and Jefferson. The event includes a keynote address by Phoenix Sun Danny…
Diane Upchurch sees considerably more in shopping bags than “paper or plastic.” Just how much more is apparent in the 80 or so examples dating from 1985 that she has assembled into “Portable Design: A Selection of Shopping Bags,” an ASU College of Architecture show highlighting the ingenuity and marketing…
June is the month Hallmark has told us we should wax sentimental over Dad. In reality, the towering figure of a father can be a forbidding presence from a child’s perspective. Men are traditionally reticent about revealing their feelings, so a child may be mystified by a father’s behavior. What…
It is a joy to report the birth of a new theatre in Phoenix, especially one that shows such promise in its pedigree. The group is called The Ensemble Theatre, founded by “actors and artists who have all returned to Arizona and our artistic roots.” This lineage can be traced…
Lynn Redgrave is starring in a play she wrote about her troubled relationship with her famous father, directed by her own husband. The play deals with the emotional remoteness and larger-than-life persona of the celebrated British actor Sir Michael Redgrave. When Redgrave decides to spill her guts in public, it’s…
Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey may be the best TV comics in the movies. The sharpest work to date of that painfully promising and unrealized talent Stiller has been in his marvelous TV sketches, and that is the background of the comedy superstar Carrey, too. Both may feel that they…
Neil Simon is the most popular playwright in American theatre history. He has written some 27 plays for Broadway, accumulating close to 17,000 performances. Valley audiences now have a chance to see two of his better plays in revival at two local theatres, giving us the opportunity to contrast early…
