Seeing the Harry Potter movies come to life is now finally possible — and we don’t mean through your friends’ eerily on-point Halloween costumes. Nah, we’re talking about the recent opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood. It’s the biggest deal in this fan-chise since Neville…
‘Tis the season to stay up late and be kept up even later.
Is it a hotel or an art museum?
Beth Hebrew Synagogue in downtown Phoenix isn’t your typical place of worship. Besides religious services, the storied site has hosted film screenings, architectural lectures, and, perhaps most notably, a panel discussion with members of the Russian protest-art collective Pussy Riot. Continuing in that vein is a late October theatrical adaptation of…
When Sarah Waters published her gothic lesbian suspense novel Fingersmith in early 2002, the U.S. was beginning a relatively speedy transformation on the LGBT front, building to today’s legalized same-sex marriage and a presidential candidate’s full-throated support for expanded LGBT rights. Buoyed by that shift, Waters’ story of clandestine female lovers…
The Handmaiden, Korean director Park Chan-wook’s Gothic lesbian tale of romance, revenge, and (light) bondage, is the kind of electrifying indulgence only he can make. The film is a loose adaptation of Welsh novelist Sarah Waters’ 2002 thriller Fingersmith, about a female pickpocket who poses as a maid for a…
Thieves Market will continue as usual.
It’s rare for a franchise, especially in the horror genre, to actually get better as it progresses — doubly so if the final part of said progression is a TV series. Yet in six-part miniseries form, currently airing on the you-didn’t-know-you-had-it Pop network following a broadcast in Australia earlier this…
Writer/director Osgood Perkins has been peeking at my Shirley Jackson book collection, and he’s already read through my favorites: The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Jackson, who penned chilling ghost stories and moral tales in the ‘40s, ’50s, and ’60s — like her…
America never understood Oasis’ hugeness. By that I don’t just mean the band’s epochal mid-’90s global popularity or the nationalistic fervor it stirred in the U.K. I mean, simply, its hugeness of sound. In the States, only the ballads connected, the glorious/meaningless Beatle raptures “Wonderwall,” “Live Forever,” and “Champagne Supernova”…
Savor the delectable comedy Tampopo on a full stomach. Juzo Itami’s 1985 paean to the fastidious preparation and blissful consumption of food created an American hunger for Japanese cuisine, and can still be enjoyed solely as a satisfying feast. But the writer and director’s second film is also a biting…
“No one calls you honey when you’re sitting on a throne.” So read the words written across Brooke Grucella’s large-scale painting that visitors see when they enter the “Push Comes to Shove” exhibition at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. On view through January 2017, the exhibition includes work by 19 artists from…
What to plant, harvest, and keep in mind.
Phoenix artist Amanda Mollindo is the latest creative to win a Good ‘N Plenty Award from Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The annual awards, which were established in 2012, encourage artists and other creative types to develop projects that address local needs and engage community members. Six artists pitched ideas…
Say goodbye to Nancy HIll’s Grand Avenue art space.
Judge Dredd, Prez, and more.
Twenty artists with ties to Arizona will show works at Miami-area art fairs when Art Basel Miami takes place in December. Their works will be part of exhibitions presented by either Lisa Sette Gallery or {9} The Gallery, both based in Phoenix. Art Basel is a renowned art fair founded…
Get ready for Día de los Muertos, a theatrical Trump takedown, and some quality time with Nick Offerman.
From Harley Quinn to Harambe, here’s what you’ll see.
If you’re a vulnerable young woman who gets hit on by lecherous older men, you might think that you could do worse than having a guy like Henry at your side. He has a low tolerance for ass grabbers, for one; he’s known to take such bird dogs by their…
Before we get into the matter of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, we must first address the issue of the man actually playing Jack Reacher. Resolved: Tom Cruise has absolutely nothing in common physically with author Lee Child’s crime-solving ex-military drifter. Cruise is famously diminutive; Reacher is famously tall and…
It seems like everyone you know has a reason to attend Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest this year. Your friends are hoping to get a photo with Eleven from Stranger Things. Meanwhile, your boss is dying to get his copy of Iron Man #128 (featuring infamous “Demon in a Bottle” arc)…
