When four pieces by a single artist can make me question the way I see the entire world, I know I’m seeing terrific art. “Vantage Point,” four installations by Dan Collins at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, is such an exhibition. Part of the show’s pleasure is that it…
Introduction Art lovers were agog last week when thieves made off with twelve works from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The haul included a Manet, a couple of Rembrandts and Vermeer’s “Concert,” well-known to all former Art History 101 students. The event set us to thinking. Is all…
William Wegman is wearing the standard uniform for a male artist of the Sixties generation–jeans, tee shirt and tennis shoes–and by his side is the standard accessory for the successful artist from that time–a pretty young brunette. At 46, Wegman has a mop of curly brown hair and a charming…
“I just think that there are lots and lots of ways to make art, and there just aren’t any rules about how to do it. And that anytime somebody tries to make rules about it, it’s a terrible mistake.” Judging from Laurie Anderson’s reputation as an avant-garde artist, you’d expect…
For years, David Markham has had a devotion to Napoleon that some of his friends think is a bit unnatural, and that would have driven to distraction a wife less understanding than Barbara. He wears, for instance, a tie decorated with bees, the French emperor’s symbol. He has traced Napoleon’s…
Meatloaf rolled his wheelchair to the very edge of the stage. “We’ve got to get out of this trap before this decadence saps our wills!” he moaned. Astonished, I watched in helpless silence as the beefy singer stopped just short of plunging over the multicolored footlights and into my lap…
“One stray grain of rice on that slick stage floor, and bang!–you’re on your ass,” frets Bruce Miles. The producer of the Mill Avenue Theatre’s impending live rendition of The Rocky Horror Show, speaking during a recent photo session, confesses he doesn’t know what to expect of the audience when…
Turn your art clock back to the 1920s and 1930s. Yves Tanguy has turned furniture into abstract forms and scattered it over the landscape of time. Max Ernst’s men have sprouted lion heads while Rene Magritte’s tomatoes and apples have grown as big as rooms. Andre Breton has proclaimed “the…
If you knew Tom Oldendick of Phoenix Little Theatre–a flamboyant type who performs a story rather than tells it–you’d be laughing so hard you’d forget for a moment that the three-act comedy he’s replaying almost cost you, the Phoenix taxpayer, a cool half million. He doesn’t spring his story as…
The opening salvo in what ought to develop into quite a lively exchange of gunfire was sounded last week when the first “counter quincentenary celebration” arrived in Phoenix. The quincentenary, as we shall all find out only too well during the next two years, is the celebration of Columbus’ discovery…
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The best if you were selling tickets; the worst if you were buying them. And now, only one question remains. Will film historians of the future refer to this as “The Heaven’s Gate Decade,” “The Ishtar Decade,” or…
How can land in boring, bland downtown be more valuable than prime sites like the Esplanade at 24th Street and Camelback? Is it just that City Hall doesn’t know how to cut a decent deal? That’s the impression given by the prices the city is paying for land for the…
Before Bruce Willis enters the room, a studio publicist announces that Mr. Willis will not discuss anything pertaining to his ex-TV series, Moonlighting, or his personal life. Hmmm. Okay. So, um, Bruce . . . whaddaya think of those Voyager photos of Neptune? Fortunately, the sole job qualification of studio…
When word leaks out that you’re going to be interviewing Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, the stars of Lethal Weapon and its new sequel, called (what else?) Lethal Weapon 2, you can count on getting two reactions. Reaction No. 1 (from females of all ages): “MEL GIBSON?!? Oh, my God!…
If there is a normal career path for Academy Award-winning actresses, Geena Davis certainly isn’t following it. Prior to being Oscarized in March for her performance in The Accidental Tourist as a dog trainer at the Meow Bow Animal Hospital who is in love with a reluctant travel writer, Davis’…
“How much difference is there between `gosh darn’ and `God damn’?” asks D.C. Martin, Grand Canyon College’s chairman of religious studies. “Is it the spelling of the words, or is there a technical difference between the two?” Those were some of the questions that prompted Martin to teach a class…
“TED BUNDY’S CORPSE! EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS INSIDE!” screeched an actual headline from the cover of a recent supermarket scandal rag, trumpeting “the pictures every American wants to see” of that executed serial killer. Even in death, the strangely charismatic Bundy–who’d been portrayed in a TV movie by heartthrob Mark Harmon–remained a…
Zev Bufman’s amphitheatre may be yesterday’s news, but fallout from the nuking it suffered in north Phoenix is still raining on Councilman Bill Parks. Come next election day, Parks likely will face opposition from at least one candidate from the ranks of people he angered by supporting the project. Amphitheatre…
There’s nothing disturbing about ASU’s Lyric Opera Theatre production of The Turn of the Screw. The cast performs competently. The costumes and set work to good advantage. The orchestral score is wonderful to follow. Honest, it’s nothing to get alarmed about. But that’s the scariest part–because this is supposed to…
Director-choreographer Michael Barnard, who has helmed a disproportionately high percentage of the Valley’s most successful theatrical endeavors over the years, rarely takes chances when it comes to casting, especially for a musical. So it’s no surprise that he’s managed to attract the best available performers for Perfectly Frank, a fast-paced…
For those who have never sampled the weird delights of Ed Wood’s filmmaking, the auteur’s entire “legitimate” (that is, pre-porno) feature canon is available on video. Any of his movies are worth a look for connaisieurs of the bizarre, although only two–Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer…
If the life of filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr., were fiction, set down more or less as Wood’s cronies tell it, it would be hailed as the great Hollywood satire. It would seem like a creation of Nathaniel West, had he survived until the Fifties, or of Tom Robbins, had…
