One of the production entities claiming responsibility in the opening titles for writer-director Hal Hartley’s film Amateur calls itself “True Fiction Pictures.” Probably this is meant as a slap at the current rage for Pulp Fiction. Indeed, if Quentin Tarantino’s film is the movie equivalent of the hard-boiled crime books,…
Smoke is set in a cigar shop, and the title also makes reference to that which many of the characters blow for much of the film. Written by novelist Paul Auster and directed by Wayne Wang, the film interweaves several story lines around a linking device, as in Twenty Bucks…
The third of Warner Bros.’ Wagnerian Batman films has arrived–it could have been titled Die Fledermaus, Part III. Batman Forever has a new director and a new star in the title role, and before we launch into a debate about their comparative merits, we would probably do well to remember…
When I asked a friend of mine, a devoted Disney-head, if he wanted to join me for a screening of Pocahontas, to my surprise, he declined, muttering, “I don’t know about that movie. It looks a little PC for my taste.” For several reasons, his being one, I think that…
A couple of things really pissed me off when I turned 50: It wasn’t enough that my junk mail started to include weekly solicitations to join AARP, I had to buy glasses from the drugstore to read them. If that didn’t make you smile, you probably won’t enjoy Ivan Menchell’s…
In 1918, the orphaned teenager Riyo leaves Japan for Hawaii and an arranged marriage. She knows her new husband Matsuji only from a letter, in which he calls himself a sugar-cane farmer and addresses a romantic haiku to her, and from his photograph–the grinning, good-looking face of a 20-year-old. When…
The Valley Art Third Annual Gay and Lesbian Film Festival starts this week in Tempe. In the first two selections, the themes of homosexuality and lesbianism, while important, are not the main subject. One is a stark feminist passion play about the religious oppression of women, and the other is…
“Herkermer Homolka; hi, hello.” So says Tim Curry’s character in Congo, introducing himself with admirable alliteration. Herkermer is a Rumanian fortune hunter obsessed with finding the mines of King Solomon, and his eyes gleam as he makes assertions like, “Thees korilla has seen de Lost Ceety of Zeenj!” Wrapping words…
“Can Broadway be saved?” was the question on the cover of New York magazine last week. Inside, Michael Goldstein prescribed a 12-step program to restore the flagship of the American theatre to its former glory. First, he says, Broadway must admit it’s got a problem. If you were one of…
Arizona Theatre Company has joined Actors Theatre of Phoenix by ending the season not with a bang, but saving a buck. Both theatres concluded the year with one-man shows. Last month, ATP gave us An Evening With Groucho, and now we have an opportunity for theatrical dj vu. Actually, ATC’s…
As Hollywood satire, Swimming With Sharks is nothing particularly new. It’s The Player mixed with David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow and a perverse pinch of Reservoir Dogs–Tinseltown bile and a drop or two of blood. This small film is worth seeing, though, for the cleanly written, bitchy dialogue by George Huang, and…
There are movie columns that come free from the neon-lighted glare of the multiplex lobby, from the sweet smell of a thousand spilled kernels of stale popcorn. This is one of them. In June of 1995, I’m at my desk, looking at the blinking cursor on the computer screen before…
It’s 4 a.m. Sirens blare, drums are launching off into some crazed atavistic groove and a surging curl of writhing, painted modern primitives snakes toward the stage. A butt-naked bald girl is pelting the audience with chunks of fruit and vegetables. A chunk of melon hits me. There’s lots of…
Groups of movies on the same subject often arrive too close together to be accounted for only by imitation; it may be one of the more unsubtle workings of the collective unconscious. In 1984, three films were released about the struggle to save a family farm, all of them–Country, The…
Two Thursdays ago, I had the honor to be a judge for the third annual Valley Art Cinematic Society Student Film Festival. In the company of fellow judges Jana Bommersbach, former New Times editor turned TV personality, and Steven Brain, new head of Fox Animation, I watched 43 short films…
If Rocco DeVilliers hadn’t been speeding through Missouri a few years ago, he probably wouldn’t be screening his film Pure Race for the European film market at Cannes. The 25-year-old Tempe resident co-scripted, produced, directed and edited the low-budget indie, played a small role in it and did “probably 90…
“Billy Crystal? I crap bigger than that.” So remarked the ever-gracious Jack Palance while accepting an Oscar for City Slickers, a film Crystal had written and produced. The thing is, Palance was right–but at least in City Slickers, the disparity between the two men had made some comic sense. In…
You don’t build the City of Tomorrow in a day. In fact, not even in 25 years, as it turns out, but Paolo Soleri’s vision of Arcosanti has not wavered since he first broke ground for his “urban laboratory” at the basalt cliffs near Cordes Junction in 1970. The beautiful,…
With the possible exception of the Empire State Building in King Kong, it’s doubtful there could be a stronger phallic symbol anywhere in movies than the submarine: an oblong shape that dives into the depths, is loaded with scurrying seamen and is eager to discharge itself. Small wonder that the…
The title The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill, but Came Down a Mountain suggests all sorts of possibilities, starting with a documentary about Sir Edmund Hillary. The movie that hides behind the title, however, is a charming, tall-tale comedy spun with sly, cheeky ease and flashes of visual grace…
Last weekend, in the chilly confines of Mesa Amphitheatre, an actor entreated us: “Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play.” Not to worry. After suffering through a season of Shakespearean mediocrity, Phoenix audiences should welcome a robust rendition of Shakespeare’s most mature historical drama, The Life of King Henry…
If you saw Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer, you may have some insight into the final offering of the season by Actors Theatre of Phoenix, now playing in Stage West at Herberger Theater Center. In that 1960 film, Olivier portrays Archie Rice, a vaudeville song-and- dance man down on his…
