Drag devotees know the eighth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race is far from over, but if tuning in to Logo TV on Mondays isn’t enough fierce to get you through the week, more than a dozen former contestants have put aside feuds (whether real or made for reality TV) and…
Hannah Arendt is unlikely to be a social media star. Newly relevant 40 years after her death, the German-born philosopher’s work is distinctly ill-suited to contemporary tools of relevance. Twitter’s context of no context values aphorism, parody and potted wisdom — branded content available in bulk. The author of The…
The lure of everything Cuba is strong. It’s in the news, on top of everyone’s travel list and in our movie theaters. But the recent films about Cuba aren’t exports from the still-embargoed country. Most come from visiting filmmakers. Irish director Paddy Breathnach captures a gorgeous portrait of Cuba with…
When it comes to TV adaptations of sci-fi and fantasy novels, Terry Brooks, author of The Elfstones of Shannara, said it best at the Tucson Festival of Books: “The book is always better!” But some book-to-TV adaptations are better than others. For every loving adaptation like Jonathan Strange and Mr…
The second season of Amazon’s Catastrophe might do for the #TGIF-style family sitcom of the late ‘80s and ‘90s what the first did for the ailing rom-com: open-mouthed resuscitation on the operating table after one too many Garry Marshall–fueled heart attacks like Valentine’s Day. (Or New Year’s Eve? It doesn’t…
Nearly every Alien movie begins the same way: in the vast loneliness of space, in a ship that’s running on its own. In the first film, Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), the camera slowly glides through the dark, lifeless corridors of the commercial towing vehicle Nostromo before locating the sleeping bodies…
In ’81 he accessorized his trench coat with high heels and bikini briefs. In ’84 that coat got dandified, high-collared and famously purple, Edwardian formalwear over a frilled tuxedo shirt over that wicked slick of chest hair. It was the get-up of a perv or a president, a look that…
Harkins Theatres announced on the evening of April 21 that its Tempe Marketplace 16 Cine Capri location will pay tribute to the late artist Prince with two screenings of Purple Rain this weekend. It’s the second local film tribute announced to honor the Purple One, who died at his Minnesota…
Each week, we’re recapping season one of Fuller House, episode by episode. Do it Gibbler Style, y’all. “Ramona’s Not So Epic Party” revolved around the 13th birthday of the one-and-only Gibbler spawn. Everything was centered around the party, including the complicated dynamic between her soon-to-be-divorced parents. It was a…
Dearly beloved: Fans of the one, the only, the late Prince will gather at Pollack Tempe Cinemas on May 7 to honor the artist’s work in film. Shortly after news broke on April 21 that the pop culture icon died in his Minnesota home, Cult Classics announced plans to screen 1984’s…
Each week, we’re recapping the second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt episode by episode. Beware of silverfish. Season one of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the Netflix original that follows a young woman’s life in New York after a 15-year period living in a cultist underground bunker, turned out even better than Tina…
Butch female characters have been too few and far between in film history. In most cases, you’ll find them in so-called “gay and lesbian” genres, as though a character’s sexuality entirely defines his or her story. But in 1986, Private First Class Jenette Vasquez, expertly played by Jenette Goldstein, destroyed…
The Arc & Sprout Touring Film Festival’s aim can be boiled down to just three words: Change the world. With help from Arc of Arizona, Chandler-Gilbert Arc, and the Sprout Film Festival, the second annual edition of the event looks poised to do just that. Taking place at Tempe Pollack…
JLouis Mills isn’t a doctor, but after years of persistence, he now plays one on TV. This is thanks to a single phone call. The roadblocks along the way were multifold. Mills struggled with the blood disease known as Kawasaki Syndrome from ages 6 to 12, underwent retinal re-attachment surgery…
Don’t hold it against Tom Tykwer’s A Hologram for the King that its best scene is also its first. As Alan Clay (Tom Hanks) strides down a suburban street singing a modified version of Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” (“You may find yourself … without a beautiful house ……
Elvis Presley once watched Dr. Strangelove three times in one night at a Memphis movie theater. After that, he made them play the last reel several more times, marveling at it. It’s fascinating to wonder about: Here’s this country’s biggest musical star, the leading man in movies he knew were…
Jonathan Pine, the hero of The Night Manager, might have a syrupy voice and skin tanned to a glowing bronze, but in other respects he’s a classic John le Carré creation. Pine (Tom Hiddleston) makes his living unshowily and in the dark, at a swank hotel, juggling front-desk phone calls,…
Who says superheroes can’t get action beyond fight scenes? Just because they’re saving the world all the time doesn’t mean they can’t serve justice between the sheets, too. With superhero movies and TV shows more popular than ever, we’re looking back at some of the steamiest moments in superhero sex…
Careful what you wish for. When it was announced that Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt would be joining Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth for the followup to 2012’s humdrum action/fairy tale Snow White and the Huntsman, many filmgoers, myself included, got unduly excited. The original film, while a hit, had…
All actors possess their own personal gateway into becoming a character. Some require deep memory mining (Method). Others require lengthy conversations with the director about seemingly unrelated philosophical topics. And some just need a single physical characteristic around which they can develop a character’s entire being. Susan Sarandon is a…
Deep into her earnest, uncertain Nina Simone drama Nina, writer-director Cynthia Mort at last musters up a sequence of gravity and power. The inimitable Miss Simone — imitated here by Zoe Saldana — reads a letter from a woman who has recently lost her mother, a great Simone fan. It’s…
Each week, we’re recapping the first season of Fuller House episode by episode. Everyone jump in the ring! The Legend of El Explosivo opens with Kimmy unloading a bag of groceries from her trip to the 89-cent store. She gushes about it — compared to the snooty 99 cents store…
