Phoenix has long held the title of “speed capital of the West,” though not for reasons that make any of us proud. Thankfully, some people are trying to lend new meaning to that label. Racing sports such as NASCAR, Supercross and motorcycle road-racing are becoming more popular nationwide, even meriting…
About half an hour into the Actors Theatre of Phoenix production of Dinner With Friends, my theater companion leaned over and whispered, “This is great. But what makes it a Pulitzer Prize winner?” I’d been wondering the same thing about Donald Margulies’ perfectly charming, often amusing dramedy about a pair…
To the woman who broke Adrian Lyne’s heart all those years ago: Stop what you’re doing right this minute. Drop everything, pick up the phone and call him. Apologize profusely for cheating on him. Tell him it’s all your fault and you’re a worse person for leaving him. Offer him…
Last month GQ ran a disquietingly flattering profile of Joe Roth, who, in January 2000, quit his gig as Walt Disney Studios chairman to “revolutionize the industry” (GQ’s words) by forming his own studio. With a billion bucks on loan from men with money and bridges to burn — among…
Choreographer Dwight Rhoden’s new work, created for Ballet Arizona, just might alter your perception of ballet. Through eclectic references to various world cultures, Scarlet Symphony defies the conventions of an art form that’s steeped in tradition. A recent chat with Rhoden, former principal dancer for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre…
The future is here — at the Phoenix Art Museum, that is. “New Nomads,” the latest exhibition in the Fashion Design Gallery, is not the usual collection of significant clothing from the past but rather a projection of what will be significant, an inspiring, cutting-edge display that illustrates how technology…
I’m old enough to remember when performance art was considered a new form, back when truly hip people spent weekend nights in renovated warehouses watching would-be actors transform traditional theater arts. If I’ve reached an age at which hipness eludes me, I’m not so old that I can’t still appreciate…
“This is contrary to how we grew up,” Stacy Peralta is saying a few minutes after getting dropped off at a newspaper office by a limo driver. The 45-year-old Peralta, still SoCal handsome and boyish beneath a ball cap and behind a well-trimmed beard, grins long and hard–a real hell-yeah…
Kick a boy enough times, and he’ll become a man. The question is: A man of what sort? In his long-awaited feature portrait of the comic-book hero Spider-Man, director Sam Raimi brings forth a kaleidoscopic answer full of hope and verve. Flashy enough for kids yet insightful enough to engage…
Like Vulgar and Chelsea Walls, Deuces Wild is yet another new release now inexplicably being distributed theatrically — rather than slinking away to the video/cable market — after having explicably sat on the shelf for upward of a year. The film’s age is immediately evident, both in how young Frankie…
Ten years after The Scandal — and its negative effect on the size of his audiences, power and independence — Woody Allen broke his longtime avoidance of the Oscar telecast with his pro-New York standup shtick at this year’s ceremony. The positive audience response suggested that all is forgiven …
Spring is quickly melting into summer in the Valley, and armchair sports fans are settling in, sticking their sweaty thighs to leather La-Z-Boys for the NBA and NHL playoffs and the return of the D-Backs. In contrast, the climb to hellish temperatures bodes ill for participatory sports enthusiasts, who look…
In most parts of the country, the fifth of May is a barely understood holiday spent downing cervezas and donning sombreros, like some sort of south-of-the-border St. Patrick’s Day. But fortunately for Phoenicians, a strong Hispanic heritage brings soul to Cinco de Mayo, providing substance and an atmosphere fit for…
Peter Bogdanovich, maybe the last man alive who wears a neckerchief without irony, holds a copy of a newspaper article in which his old friend Larry McMurtry is saying nice, or not nice, things about him–Bogdanovich can’t tell which. “He’s kind of risen from the dead,” McMurtry was quoted as…
Although I spent two and a half hours looking at it the other night, I’m not entirely sure what Ramona is meant to be. I can tell you what it isn’t: It’s not at all entertaining. Although Ramona is parenthetically a historical play, contains a love story and occasionally goes…
The most compelling element of Dogtown and Z-Boys, Stacy Peralta’s valentine to a crew of footloose Southern California teenagers who set a radical new style in skateboarding in the 1970s, is the documentarian’s heartfelt belief in the lasting importance of the enterprise. As a member of the tribe and an…
Poor William Randolph Hearst. The snapping dogs of Hollywood just won’t leave the guy alone. It’s been barely 60 years since a little epic called Citizen Kane portrayed the great newspaper tycoon as a ruthless dictator who degenerated into an emotional basket case, and already there’s more bad publicity in…
On a stark set dressed only with a nondescript console and a couple of chairs, three actors read verbatim transcripts from cockpit voice recorders of six real-life airline accidents. The drama of Charlie Victor Romeo comes from two places: from what’s happening in this ersatz cockpit, and from our own…
An evil clown. An eccentric French painter. A philandering husband. A fledgling drag queen. Man of a thousand faces, John Leguizamo has played an impressive variety of characters in his career. But in his current project, the one-man show Sexaholix . . . A Love Story, he performs some of…
I suppose I’ll eventually recover from having seen Ensemble Theatre’s production of Durang/ Durang. In the meantime, I’ll continue to lie here with a cold compress on my head, trying like mad to shake the memory of this unfortunate attempt at live entertainment. When it isn’t being bludgeoned by amateurs,…
Say this about World Wrestling Federation Entertainment head honcho Vince McMahon: He knows what his fans want. Few movies have ever been as specifically tailored to an existing audience as The Scorpion King, in which McMahon’s prize champion, The Rock, portrays The Rock wearing a loincloth and going by the…
Sometimes genius draws nigh, mollifying the gnashing critic with the promise of wild narrative fusion, perhaps even rollicking wit. Alas, sometimes genius then languidly squirms aside, like a loathsome strumpet, leaving one’s hopeful wantonness piqued but unfulfilled. Both cases apply to the boldly peculiar Scotland, PA., which sweeps up Shakespeare’s…
