When they’re not doing awesome relationship stuff like watching endless loops of 30 Rock episodes on Netflix and figuring out what a vegan and omnivore should make for dinner, New Times writers Becky Bartkowski and Jason Woodbury go to the movies.Last night they watched the new Sarah Jessica Parker dramedy I Don’t…
Attention short film enthusiasts: there’s a new film festival coming to town dedicated to showcasing local filmmakers. The Long Shadow Film Festival is currently seeking submissions of short films and videos of all genres (narratives, documentary, experimental), and is especially interested in the work of Arizona artists. Check out submission details after…
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, how many times did you wash your hands after seeing Contagion?Jackie: Twice — before leaving the theater. I’ve never been so…
When they’re not doing awesome relationship stuff like watching endless loops of 30 Rock episodes on Netflix and figuring out what a vegan and omnivore should make for dinner, New Times writers Becky Bartkowski and Jason Woodbury go to the movies.Last night they went to see Drive, a neo-noir action flick starring Ryan…
Currently the fifth-to-last film on Steven Soderbergh’s ever-expanding pre-retirement slate, Contagion opens on day two of a global viral epidemic. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Beth Emhoff, an American employee for an ominously unspecific multinational corporation who returns from a business trip in Hong Kong to her wintry Midwestern home feeling like…
At one point in Higher Ground, Vera Farmiga’s decade-spanning directorial debut, the actress, playing Corinne, a woman still soaked with lake water after her baptism into an evangelical sect, resembles no less a touchstone than Ronee Blakley in Robert Altman’s Nashville: slightly high hair; starchy, sexless, long tunic dress; swaying…
The subject of Magic Trip is the LSD-powered, cross-country road movie orchestrated by novelist Ken Kesey in the summer of ’64. More than a footnote but less than a chapter in American cultural history, the voyage taken by a psychedelic Day-Glo painted school bus filled with Kesey’s Merry Prankster pals…
Lionsgate released the latest trailer for Hunger Games, based on the popular trilogy by Suzanne Cullins. With about five sentences, three explosions, and a one minute peek into the anticipated film, the trailer may temporarily soothe the anxiety and crazed twitches of YA literature fans after the end (?!) of Harry…
A group of 30-somethings trapped in the amber of their high school years attempt to bone their way into adulthood in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, an ensemble sex comedy written and directed by Larry Sanders Show writers Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck. Technically, the orgy of the title is…
Phoenix-based author James Sallis has been through the Hollywood wringer discussing his novella Drive. Sallis’ 200-page book was picked up by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. Next week, the book goes to the silver screen in a neo-noir flick, directed by Refn and starring Ryan Gosling.Between Hollywood screenings and everyday life –…
Stop by FilmBar tonight and you’ll likely get an eyeful of work by the late and great pop artist, Keith Haring. The Downtown theater will present a one-night showing of “The Universe of Keith Haring”, a portrait of the artist that includes archival footage and interviews with fellow artists including Fab…
There’s a bit of construction dust on the ground and a few sheets of plastic covering the fixtures, but the new AMC Dine-In Theatres in Central Phoenix looks just about ready for its grand opening next week. The upscale cineplex on the second level of The Esplanade will open its…
It didn’t take long for indie film programmer Steve Weiss to find his next gig. The cineaste and organizer of No Festival Required, who left the programming position at FilmBar earlier this month, recently announced he will begin booking films and documentaries at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts starting this…
In Jesse Peretz’s Our Idiot Brother, Paul Rudd plays Ned, a kind of Upstate New York version of “The Dude” Lebowski — a man out of time, blinkered enough to be living the hippie dream. In the film’s first scene, Ned is “entrapped” into selling pot at a farmers market…
In Bellflower — the dystopian micro-indie that galvanized Sundance last January — a run-of-the-mill romantic disaster is swiftly followed by a crippling accident. His heart broken, his brain damaged, and his neck brace soaked with blood, Woodrow (played by Bellflower’s writer/director, Evan Glodell) sets out to make Milly (Jessie Wiseman),…
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…
If you’ve been sitting on a great idea for a movie script, now’s a good time to start typing. From now through November 23, the Independent Feature Project Phoenix is looking for short film scripts to produce for their “Script to Screen Challenge.”IFP Phoenix hosts a variety of film challenges throughout…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
