When the two cast members in Actors Theatre of Phoenix’s production of David Mamet’s Oleanna start talking to each other in act one, it sounds forced. Away they chatter in the herky-jerky verbal rhythms for which Mamet is so celebrated, finishing each other’s sentences and not finishing their own, taking…
In Two Much, Antonio Banderas plays a financially strapped rascal of a Miami art gallery owner who poses as twin brothers–one brainy, one a smooth operator–in order to romance two rich, gorgeous sisters (Daryl Hannah and Melanie Griffith). His character’s name is “Arturo Dodge,” which may give you an idea…
If you’re planning to see Executive Decision, you may wish to stop reading this for now, as I’m going to reveal a significant plot development within the next couple of paragraphs. I don’t do this to spoil anyone’s fun–I don’t think it will–but because I think the twist isn’t a…
thursday march 21 Cactus League Baseball: They struck out in 1995, but the real boys of spring are back for this year’s slate of preseason games, which continues daily, through Friday, March 29, at venues in the Valley and Tucson. For the schedule and other information, see the “Cactus League”…
heads and tales Roadbug and Junebug/Jack: Whitesburg, Kentucky-based troupe Roadside Theater and New Orleans company Junebug Productions have joined forces for these educational and entertaining presentations, which will be performed at separate venues. Roadbug, acompilation of “stories and songs from two cultures,” starts at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 21, at…
It’s doubtful that any country ever produced finer socialists than those of Great Britain–of the literary sort, at least. Perhaps because the class system is so plainly laid out on that little island, writers like Shaw and Orwell could oppose, even hate, the ruling class without failing to recognize that…
No genre should ever be written off completely. Just when you think there’s no room for any more hipster crime films of the Tarantino stripe, along comes Bottle Rocket, a crazy and wonderful little picture that reinvents caper comedy by bouncing its conventions off real life. This startling feature debut…
The birdcage has one of the better opening shots in recent movies. To the accompaniment of “We Are Family,” the camera comes hurtling in over the ocean at night toward a glittering Florida skyline, flies over the beach, straight up to the front door of the title nightclub, and then…
little shoulders Chicago Fest: Six shows by ageless kiddy star Bozo the Clown highlight Mesa’s annual salute to the City of Big Shoulders, scheduled for 3 to 10 p.m. Friday, March 15; 3 to 10 p.m. Saturday, March 16; and noon to 4p.m. Sunday, March 17, at HoHoKam Park, 1235…
thursday march 14 Cactus League Baseball: They struck out in 1995, but the real boys of spring are back for this year’s slate of preseason games, which continues daily, through Friday, March 29, at venues in the Valley and Tucson. For the schedule and other information, see the “Cactus League”…
When Martin Sherman’s play Bent premiered in England in 1977, the plight of homosexuals in the Holocaust was a little-discussed episode of the century’s history. In the two decades since, the pink triangle which gays were made to wear in the concentration camps–the equivalent of the yellow star worn by…
Canadian director Patricia Rozema’s sweet lesbian romance When Night Is Falling begins with the heroine, Camille, coming home to find her lovely little dog missing. She goes looking for him, and finds his pitiful, limp form lying in an alleyway. Unable to bear the thought of burying him yet, she…
Joe (Michael Maloney), a long-out-of-work London actor, is so hard-up to feel good about his career that he decides to take a sort of last stand against failure. He borrows a small stake from his agent (Joan Collins) to stage a low-budget Christmas production, starring himself, at a church in…
at the concert “Peter and the Wolf”: Clotilde Otranto conducts Phoenix Symphony in a performance of the Prokofiev classic at this event, the third entry in the orchestra’s Family Concert Series. Magic Circle Mime Company is also featured in the show, which starts at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 10, at…
thursday march 7 Cactus League Baseball: They struck out in 1995, but the real boys of spring are back for this year’s slate of preseason games, which continues daily, through Friday, March 29, at venues in the Valley and Tucson (two matches are planned in Las Vegas, Nevada, this week)…
“Image Conscious,” a juried photography show geared toward altered and experimental work, proves yet again that there’s viable photographic life after Ansel Adams and his arcane Zone System–and that it’s alive, well and being shown in, of all places, Mesa, Arizona–specifically at Galeria Mesa. “Our focus for this particular show,…
“Nothing human disgusts me, unless it’s unkind or violent.” So remarks Hannah Jelkes, the spinster-paragon of The Night of the Iguana. She could be speaking for her creator, Tennessee Williams. That’s very likely just what Williams had in mind–reading or watching him, one always has the feeling that Williams saw…
Phoenix Theatre’s moving Arizona premiere of Miss Evers’ Boys puts achingly human faces on a truly brutal episode of American racism. The year is 1932, and a group of black men in Macon County, Alabama, is chosen for a seemingly benevolent government study on how best to treat syphilis patients…
While watching Unforgettable, the third feature from that startling spinner of contemporary noir director John Dahl, I thought of the same cheap crack that every film critic in the country will make if unimpressed by the film: It’s forgettable. Indeed, it is not especially memorable. Certainly it isn’t upto the…
Julia Roberts plays the title role in Mary Reilly, roughly the bazillionth film to retell Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (see the related story on page 62). This one, from a novel by Valerie Martin, takes this apparently inexhaustible tale from a woman’s point…
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde began life when Robert Louis Stevenson, living in Edinburgh and broke, wrote the story as a potboiler. It’s said that the original draft so horrified his wife that he burned it and then–in a fit of commercial savvy–rewrote it. He structured the story as a…
small world “Exclusively Little”: This annual event for children age 6 and under features arts, crafts, face painting, a teddy-bear contest and more. It’s scheduled for noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 2, at McCormick Railroad Park, 7301 East Indian Bend in Scottsdale. Admission is $3 per kid. For details…
