Local Documentary Beadle Architecture Screens at The Clarendon

Note: this post has been edited. Beadle Architecture will screen next Tuesday, August 30. Modernist architect Alfred Newman Beadle was notorious for adhering to an unwavering vision. But when it came to design, compromise wasn’t in his vocabulary. The man behind Phoenix’s Executive Towers and Mountain Bell building worked in absolutes…

Sion Sono’s Cold Fish screens at The Royale

Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono’s skin-crawler Cold Fish tells the tale of a mild-mannered fishmonger sucked into the bloodcurdling world of a murderous fellow seafood salesman. The hair-raiser screens at The Royale in Mesa on Friday, August 19, at 11 p.m., and Saturday, August 20, at 9 p.m.”Cold Fish is a…

The Future: Navigating What Lies Ahead in Miranda July’s Latest

Is there such thing as a sincerely calculated naïveté? Or put another way, does Miranda July have any idea of how annoying she is? On the basis of The Future, writer/filmmaker/performance artist July’s second feature, I’d guess that she must. A fabricator of her own screen image, July — the…

Conan’s Reboot Is Bloody Good

A cinematic reboot for the patron saint of 98-pound weaklings, Conan the Barbarian is both truer to the vision of its character’s creator, Robert E. Howard, and more satisfyingly pulpy than John Milius’ 1982 movie incarnation. Director Marcus Nispel, along with no fewer than three screenwriters, eschews the lugubrious mythmaking…

One Day: Life Happens According to a Plan

Directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by David Nicholls, based on his novel, One Day stars Anne Hathaway as Emma, a too-serious would-be writer in coke-bottle glasses and combat boots. She’s nursing a crush on Dexter (Jim Sturgess), her too-good-looking rich boy college classmate. She’s earnest, tenacious…

“Biggest Loser” Hosts Casting Call in Phoenix

In 2008, Ali Vincent lost 112 pounds and won $250,000. The then-32-year-old from Mesa was a cast member on The Biggest Loser and became the show’s first female winner. Today, she’s a speaker, spokeswoman, author, and soon-to-be creator of her own charitable foundation. And she says it all started with an open…

The Help: Civil Rights Through a Soft-Focus Lens

More than just the Hollywood It Girl of the moment, Emma Stone is a real actress, and in The Help, she gets an ostentatious, Oscar-baiting Big Scene in which to prove it. Stone is, to borrow a phrase from Bret Easton Ellis’ Twitter account, thoroughly post-empire — she doesn’t need…

30 Minutes or Less Plays It Too Safe

Money-back guarantees feel like such a remnant of the old economy. Does the depressed consumer class even expect companies to make good on their advertised word anymore? But maybe the dream of free slices scammed from over-promising pizza parlors springs eternal. At least that’s the game being run on Jesse…

Armadillo Showing at FilmBar this Week

Filmmaker Janus Metz’s documentary, Armadillo, is about as raw as they come.Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following a group of Danish soldiers working at an army base (Armadillo) in the Afghan province of Helmland. The soldiers patrol an area where Taliban forces are often less than a…

Rusty Spoke Screens Easy Rider Tonight

The gearheads at the Rusty Spoke Community Bicycle Collective are offering their own version of the summertime cinematic drive-in experience tonight when they present a “bike-in” screening at their location on Grand Avenue. Fittingly enough, the film being featured is Easy Rider, the landmark movie masterpiece that’s all about life on…

MOVE: A Quick Documentary on Culture

What happens when you commission three guys to take 18 flights to 11 countries spanning 38 thousand miles in 44 days with two cameras? You get a terabyte of film that, when edited down to one minute, gives a unique view into countless corners of the world.  Read more about the Australian-based…

Rise of the Planet of the Apes: James Franco Destroys Humanity

Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline our dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Tyler: So, if I remember correctly you haven’t seen any of the original Planet of the Apes movies, including that awful Mark Wahlberg…

Some Days are Better Than Others at FilmBar

Portland. With images of co-op shops selling trinkets and totes with birds on them, grizzly bearded men dressed in plaid, and tattooed girls riding Dutch bikes, the city’s been the backdrop of hipster dreams ever since indie kids got tired of Brooklyn. Naturally, the granola city is also the backdrop…

The Change-Up: Guys Urinate, Swap Bodies, and Discover Their True Selves

A uniquely Freudian entry in the body-switching comedy canon, The Change-Up stars Jason Bateman as standard issue anal-retentive lawyer/family man Dave, and Ryan Reynolds as Dave’s classically anal-expulsive stoner/playboy childhood friend Mitch. When sober, Dave begrudgingly tolerates Mitch’s wild-animal routine. One night, when both are drunk, Dave admits he’s secretly…

Rise of the Planet of the Apes: The Making of a Monkey Activist

The making of a monkey activist in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The latest descendant of the half-century old de-evolution concept that began with Pierre Boulle’s novel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an origin story. Predicting an ape-supremacist future, Rupert Wyatt’s film is set in…