About Will Smith’s estimable talents, there is no doubt. Six Degrees of Separation, Ali . . . um . . . the “Parents Just Don’t Understand” video — the man’s got skills to pay the bills, yours and mine and his. That he seldom uses them, or their attendant clout,…
Of all the hundreds of pedophile priests to be flushed out of the woodwork in recent Catholic Church history, Father Oliver O’Grady has to be one of the most harmless looking, and the most sinister. Wispy, unremarkable and accommodating, with an ingratiating half-smile playing permanently about his thin lips, Father…
Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish play unbelievably gorgeous heroin junkies in Candy, a don’t-try-this-at-home melodrama adapted from Australian author Luke Davies’ aptly billed “novel of love and addiction.” Essentially, the film is Requiem for a Dream with a lot less of that overrated indie’s shooting-gallery pizzazz, although director Neil Armfield…
It’s finally happened. Joseph Kremer has at last appeared in a role that he’s not able to make his own. Kremer, who arrived seemingly out of nowhere a couple of seasons ago, has tackled — and excelled at! — roles as diverse as a sleazy French aristocrat in Les Liaisons…
I couldn’t tell if the holiday choir that kicked off the surprisingly dreary Sister’s Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi’s Gold was for real or not. Are they deliberately off-key, I wondered, and that’s the joke? My uncertainty grew as this overlong evening dragged on and on. How, I…
Nintendo has achieved the impossible: My 50-year-old, non-gaming father wants a Wii for Christmas. Either I’ve been whisked to Bizarro World, or The House That Mario Built is on to something big. With the release of its oddly monikered next-gen system, Nintendo may just have revolutionized the way America will…
Talladega Nights (Columbia) This cut of Will Ferrell’s NASCAR comedy runs 13 minutes longer than the theatrical version, and that doesn’t take into account the deleted and extended scenes, outtakes, phony commercials, public-service announcements, and gag reel. A movie that already seemed to be constructed from deleted scenes is well…
Wishes, Wassail, and Wonder: Don’t let its super-cheesy title fool you: iTheatre Collaborative’s fourth annual Christmas cabaret is in on its own joke, and may well be your best bet for kicky holiday entertainment with an edge. Shot through with caustic comic turns, this Yule-themed New York-style cabaret cobbles together…
AFI: I Heard a Voice (Interscope) Air Buddies (Disney) Ali Rap (ESPN) The Andy Griffith Show: The Complete Series (Paramount) Barnyard (Paramount) The Chronicles of Narnia: Four-Disc Extended Edition (Disney) A Dead Calling (Lions Gate) The Doors (Lions Gate) James Bond: Ultimate Edition Volumes 3 and 4 (MGM) John Wayne…
You love music, you enjoy a drink while listening to music, but you aren’t all into acting like a hipster foolio in public while marinating on music. Well, Shane Kennedy, a local deejay and never one to bite his tongue, has a cure for the hipster-foolio part during his weekly…
Spanish-language students and foreign-film connoisseurs can kick it together during the weekly English-subtitled Spanish Place Movie Mondays series. In honor of December’s Cuba Month, the space will screen the righteous music documentary Buena Vista Social Club, which spotlights Havana’s legendary musicians. Second Friday of every month, 6 p.m., 2007…
You won’t be singing The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” during Punk Rock Karaoke. Nor will you belt out Black Flag’s “TV Party” or the Dead Kennedys’ “Halloween.” These spike-and-leather standards haven’t been banned or anything, they simply aren’t in the catalogue of more than 10,000 songs available for musical mimicry at…
Remember when your first-grade teacher said that without the abundant rays of the sun, the Earth would die? Humans can’t get enough of the stuff, and nothing proves our sentimentality for shine like the work on display at “Molten: Glass and Neon Art” at Mesa Contemporary Arts. The four featured…
Apocalypto has a faux Greek title and an opening quote from historian Will Durant that ruminates on the decline of imperial Rome. It may seem an odd way to comment on the supposed end of an imaginary, unspeakably barbaric Mayan civilization — but WWJD? Mel Gibson means to be universal…
From its wink-wink, nudge-nudge, movie-within-a-movie opening through to its boldfaced quoting of such classic Hollywood farces as The Lady Eve and His Girl Friday, Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday wants us to know that it’s different from the kind of rom-com pablum that fills the multiplexes these days. And it is…
“T.I.A.,” mutters Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), slouched across a bar in Sierra Leone. It is 1999. As the West obsesses over Clinton’s blowjob, the West African nation is mired in a savage civil war. Our hero, a world-weary soldier of fortune, has struck up a conversation with Maddy Bowen (Jennifer…
James White, 57, longtime Arizona State University sculpture professor, creates humorous and whimsical works that incorporate his custom bent tubes of neon light. White’s sculpture often presents playful ideas that result from his daily interactions with his beloved students and sprightly preteen daughter. The Tempe studio is more like Dad’s…
I did not have to fend off a horde of bloodthirsty geeks for my PS3. And nobody shot me either, as one hapless Connecticut gamer was. Actually, I just preordered my console weeks ago, and on the day it came out, I walked into the store, paid for it, and…
Rocky: 2-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) An old TV commercial for Rocky included here compares Sylvester Stallone to Pacino, De Niro, and Brando — and though we now know this to be pure madness, it’s easy to see what inspired it. Sure, Stallone (who also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay) slowly destroyed…
“Big Works” at Herberger Theater Center: Critics of Chicago’s newly installed Agora, a public art sculpture featuring 106 headless bronze figures, can attest to the fact that bigger doesn’t necessarily equal better when it comes to art. Thankfully, physical size wasn’t the sole requirement for inclusion in this eclectic exhibition…
The Architect (Magnolia) Beerfest: Unrated (Warner Bros.) Charlie Chan Collection, Volume 2 (Fox) Coma Girl (Cinequest) The Conformist: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Dinosaur Valley Girls: Mammoth Edition (Cinema Epoch) Dungeons & Dragons: The Complete Animated Series (Brentwood) Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton: The Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Gwen Stefani: Harajuku…
Naked people totally kick butt, especially when one needs to brush up on his or her life-drawing skills. But when the semester is over and your boyfriend won’t hold still long enough for you to get in any good practice, it might be time to visit ArtStageSound when the space…
