Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline their dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Tyler: Well, that was better than I expected. Jackie: Right? I thought this was going to be some sort of disconnected, story-less fun fest like Grown…
This year’s Phoenix Film Festival screened several feature length and short documentaries about pot smugglers, wild horses (and the crazy people that train them), the science of happiness, translating American television into Russian, and In-n-Out Burgers. But there were a few that truly stood apart. Here are our top pics from…
Howl, director Rob Epstein’s biopic about Allen Ginsberg and the obscenity trial surrounding his titular poem, starts with a statement that every word in the film was actually spoken by the people portrayed, but that it’s unlike a documentary in any other way.It was an an apt opener for this…
The era of the teenage action heroine is fully upon us. As pop-cultural correctives go, it’s a mixed blessing. In one corner, you’ve got the jailbait fantasies of Sucker Punch and Kick-Ass, which eagerly trade on notions of naughty girliness rather than transcend or interrogate them. In the other, you’ve…
The selection of short films made by local filmmakers in this year’s Arizona category at The Phoenix Film Festival represented a variety of genres and styles. There were action films, comedies, a musical, and a horror/suspense film. Here are a few of our favorites and the winner of this year’s…
One of the showcased feature films at this year’s Phoenix Film Festival puts ganja and a group of aging smugglers from Florida on the silver screen. In the 1970s, South Florida fishing boats were infamous for hauling in “square grouper,” and catching a square grouper meant catching a boatload of…
Nothing goes better with a movie than dinner (and perhaps vise versa), which Chow Bella has all figured out.Dinner and a Movie pairs all sorts of films with themed recipes each week.Today features Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams. The film was inspired by the director’s memories and was one the last films…
Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline their dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Tyler: Alright, what is up with all of the “dream within a dream” movies lately? I blame Christopher Nolan.Jackie: Yeah, it’s definitely his fault. But…
The Phoenix Film Festival kicks off tonight tonight with an opening gala, which according to Festival will be a great chance to catch a glimpse of “celebrities” including Cuba Gooding Jr. and Sally Kellerman. We’re actually more excited about Phoenix Suns player Grant Hill, who will appear and screen his…
Moon director Duncan Jones’ sophomore feature, Source Code — a pseudo-cerebral, modestly budgeted sci-fi thriller with ambitions more Philip K. Dick-like in scope than the recent Dick adaptation The Adjustment Bureau — is a propulsive ride worth your popcorn dollar, not for its preposterous genre tinkering but for its refreshingly…
There is a great deal of prowling motion in Insidious: a recurring sideways dolly outside an ominous house, a trench-coat-clad cacodemon pacing outside a second-story window. It’s the restless motion of a movie stalking its prey: you, dear viewer. A married couple, Josh and Renai (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne),…
If you’re one of the many people who have a Stormtrooper helmet, argue on a daily basis about whether or not it’s better that Han shot first, or merely wish that Jar Jar Binks could be erased out of existence with a Brillo pad and bleach, then The People vs…
Pro skateboarders Benny Fairfax, Dennis Busenitz, Pete Eldridge, Lem Villemin and Vince Del Valle dropped into Paradise Valley Skate Park on Friday, to the surprise of about 100 (totally stoked) local skateboarders. The stunt was sponsored by adidas during a cross-country brand and new skate shoe campaign. A group of…
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: Wow, that was like a steam punk, anime, video game nerd’s wet dream. I think we just saw someone’s wet dream in movie…
This week’s big movie may be found on TV. Arch-independent filmmaker Todd Haynes makes a characteristically sidelong move toward the mainstream with his five-part miniseries Mildred Pierce, which starts this Sunday on HBO. Haynes, the most academic yet mass-culture-minded of U.S. indie directors, began his career in the late Reagan…
Elizabeth Taylor, considered to be one of the greatest American actresses, died this morning at the age of 79. Her film career began when she was 9 years old in There’s One Born Every Minute. She continued acting and was nominated for awards for her performances in Raintree County ,…
Japanese cinema’s been around for more than 100 years, landing it a well-deserved spot as one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world with directing greats Kurosawa Akira, Miyazaki Hayao, and Oshima Nagisa, to name a few. As the country currently works to stabilize, strengthen, and rebuild…
Nothing goes better with a movie than dinner (and perhaps vise versa), which Chow Bella has all figured out.Dinner and a Movie pairs all sorts of films with themed recipes each week.Today features Winter’s Bone, the Oscar nominated drama released this year, starring Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes. Chow Bella…
Automorphosis isn’t just a documentary about art cars — it’s a study in interesting people, and their often wacky obsessions. Much of what viewers see in Automorphosis falls in the “stranger than fiction” category — it’s the vision of Filmmaker Harrod Blank (an artist who created a camera-shaped van out…
A gleeful celebration of nonstop doping, Limitless offers up a dim Better Living Through Chemistry fantasy that refuses to rain on its own pill-popping parade. With long, disheveled locks and matching facial scruff, novelist Eddie (Bradley Cooper) struggles with writer’s block until he runs into his ex-brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth)…
Paul, it should be noted up-front, is not the third installment in the so-called Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, though there are indeed servings of both. Note the one key missing element: Edgar Wright, who directed and co-wrote with Pegg both the 2004 zom-com…
Last night, representatives from the Phoenix Film Festival gave an audience at the Phoenix Art Museum a sneak peek at a few short films in the Arizona, Animated and Foreign categories. If you didn’t catch them last night, you’ll have a second chance during the festival, March 31 through April…
