“I was recently sitting with a group of French directors, and at a certain point, the conversation turned to Fred Wiseman,” critic Kent Jones wrote eight years ago in Film Comment. “Without hesitation, everyone agreed that he was probably America’s greatest living filmmaker . . .” — not to mention…
Maybe it’s the NyQuil talking, but The Fashion Show Ultimate Collection was almost entertaining this week: The designers go “mad plaid” (which is kind of like mad cow disease, but instead of everyone going bat shit crazy while their brains degenerate, they develop a sick obsession with that God-awful plaid your mom made you wear in second grade…) and get stuck in a time warp.
The turkey was barely out of the oven, and already far too many television stations were busy pumping out countless holiday releases (that never quite made it to the big screen) featuring whats-his-name-type actors and low budget special effects. And somehow we love them. Despite their early arrivals and doomed…
“She doesn’t sing that way because she’s had it easy.” This is how Tess (Cher), the long-suffering owner of the nightclub at the center of Burlesque, defends her new star, Ali (Christina Aguilera), to the club’s jealous, deposed marquee attraction, Nikki (Kristen Bell). The same phrase could substitute as a…
“Great,” sighs the wicked witch in Tangled, a CG-animated spin on the Rapunzel story, “now I’m the bad guy.” Mother Gothel, the frizzy-haired, sharp-featured enchantress with the inimitable voice of Donna Murphy, is Disney’s first villainess whose chief crime is being an underminer, and the heroine of Disney’s 50th animated…
The working trailer for a new SB1070 documentary is dramatic, complete with interviews of Sheriff Arpaio and other polarizing figures — which isn’t especially surprising. What is surprising is that the whole film was produced, directed, cut, and shot by six Arcadia High School students. The project, currently named “The…
Seriously Bravo, you’re going to let The World’s Most Boring Fashion Show Ultimate Collection go on?! The most interesting parts of this episode was spotting America’s Next Top Model castoff Melrose as the ’40s femme fatale in the challenge’s inspiration sequence (and the numerous flashbacks… is that how you’re keeping Tyra off your ass for stealing Tyra Mail?!) and hearing Isaac dispute that’s he’s ever worn drag because he’s “such an ugly girl.” Yeah, we’ll side with you on that last part… but we highly doubt the first.
The Arizona Department of Health Services estimates more than 100,000 Arizonans will apply for medical marijuana cards as soon as they can (likely March or April of next year). We can already see ourselves undergoing treatment — on our couches with a bowl of fruit, expanding our minds through skewed cinema.We…
Besides doing super-fun dating stuff like going to haunted houses for Jackalope Ranch’s comprehensive Halloween guide, New Times blogger Colin Lecher and fellow young journalist Jessica Testa go to the movies. Colin: Can I start this off with a confession? Jessica: Go ahead. Colin: I didn’t read all the Harry…
Ateenage witch stands trembling behind her unsuspecting mother and father, wand raised. Obliviate, she whispers, and her parents’ eyes go glassy, their memories erased. On the mantel, the girl’s image disappears from the family’s photos. Blinking back tears, she walks into the street, the link between herself and her childhood…
Other people besides James Franco appear in 127 Hours, but as they’re unimportant, they will not be mentioned in this review. Danny Boyle’s film — based on the story of Aron Ralston, who in 2003 cut off his own arm after being stuck for five days under a rock in…
“What if we choose to exist solely in a reality of our own making?” asks Pittsburgh community college lit professor John Brennan (Russell Crowe) rhetorically during a discussion of Don Quixote in The Next Three Days, Paul Haggis’s fourth effort as director. Like his lumpy protagonist, Haggis, who also scripted…
Welcome to Whining 101: State the Obvious on The Fashion Show Ultimate Collection. The House of Emerald Syx is too quick to tear each other down rather than build each other up, according to Tamara. And Mike’s complaining because Cesar won even though everyone knows “there’s no snow leopards in Africa.”
If 3D isn’t enough to enhance your movie-watching experience, maybe you should try the new D-BOX motion technology seats at the new UltraLuxe Scottsdale theater. (After all, having Harry Potter fly at your head during a Quidditch match is exciting, but wouldn’t it be awesome to feel his broom making…
The Dr. Seuss name often translates to tall red-and-white striped hats, cats, grinches, wockets in pockets, and towers of turtles. But Who-ville and green eggs and ham aside, Ted “Dr. Seuss” Geisel produced a body of adult work that was accused of being propagandist and racist. And it’s that side…
In the climax of Morning Glory, Rachel McAdams is dressed in a flesh-colored, diaphanous cocktail dress, its halter top and tight bodice giving way to spilling tulle. This is the kind of dress a screen heroine wears when a slow-building love plot is coming to a head; it is the…
Though based on actual 2001 events in Ohio that caused an unmanned freight train, laden with toxic waste, to go haywire, Unstoppable could just as well be set in the shining sun of Reagan’s 1980s. As the driverless locomotive begins gathering speed across rural Pennsylvania, bedecked with autumn leaves, it…
Some young actors yearn for that flashy role in a blockbuster movie that will prove their bankability to a doubting Hollywood. Kristen Stewart, on the other hand, seems determined to accentuate her anti-star bona fides, delivering aggressively affectless interviews and bracketing this summer’s $300 million-earning Twilight: Eclipse with two grittier…
This week is the Jeopardy! College Championship, and for the first time ever, Arizona State University will be represented.ASU senior Marshall Flores, a native of Avondale and a lifelong fan of the Jeopardy! show, is one of fifteen college students who’ll be competing for a grand prize of $100,000 (other…
Besides doing super-fun dating stuff like going to haunted houses for Jackalope Ranch’s comprehensive Halloween guide, New Times blogger Colin Lecher and fellow young journalist Jessica Testa go to the movies. Colin: First of all, you tricked me. Jessica: I did not trick you. I told you we were going…
In Due Date, a skinny, scowly, and dryly self-referential Robert Downey Jr. meets a chubby, beardy, quasi-autistic Zach Galifianakis boarding a flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Downey Jr. plays Peter, a Bluetoothed architect with a very pregnant wife (Michelle Monaghan) waiting at home for him; Galifianakis’ Ethan is a…
Comely, independent, willful young lass returns to collect family inheritance in rural England, drives the local men wild, makes several misalliances, and inadvertently precipitates a catastrophe before nature finally takes its course. Adapted from Posy Simmonds’ excellent graphic novel, Tamara Drewe knowingly updates Thomas Hardy’s gloomy pastoral Far From the…
