Here you’ll find madness, mayhem and murder, in no short supply. The Hughes brothers, Albert and Allen, have always had a knack for horror, as evidenced by their edgy gangster flicks, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, which they’ve stated were influenced by the styles of Brian De Palma and…
Some guys have the kind of face that suggests they’ve been to hell and back. The narrow, steely eyes, graying hair and deep lines crisscrossing the countenance of a James Coburn or Clint Eastwood can practically do all of their acting for them in any role that calls for a…
Before this week, if Arizona knew more about Rioja than did, say, South Dakota, that owed less to residents’ discernment than to their Spanish-language exposure: at least we know how to pronounce it. Like fajitas and frijoles, Rioja, a Spanish wine region, is pronounced with a soft j. If next…
Three weeks ago, on a hot September night — the air rising from the asphalt made its own hot draft — a very small crowd collected outside the old PlayWrights Workshop Theatre on First Street. The door was locked and people were waiting to get in. They shifted on their…
On October 3, there appeared in The New York Times an article about how movie studios are struggling to find new villains in a post-September 11 environment. Writer Rick Lyman rounded up the usual suspects: a few film producers, a couple of screenwriters and the requisite amount of film scholars,…
An amazing thing happens a few minutes into 2 Pianos, 4 Hands: After the show’s co-stars, both of whom are seated at glossy grand pianos, have performed a complicated duet, one of them begins banging on the keyboard in a perfect imitation of a tiny child — a character he…
If you were to hear that Our Lady of the Assassins is one of the most genuinely shocking films you’ll ever see, what would that suggest to you? Some new level of extreme violence and explicit sex, no doubt. But that’s not what’s at play in this eerily cool melodrama…
Plot aside — way aside, as it’s almost a non-issue in a film that telegraphs its final scenes during its opening moments — Bandits is really about only one thing: Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis’ bald heads. As Joe Blake (Willis) and Terry Collins (Thornton), two bank-robbing fugitives in…
Ed Ellis and Bob Kubota, who do card tricks, do them in the same way that Vincent van Gogh, who did paintings, did sunflowers: masterfully. They pull cards out of the air and link rubber bands with the same elegance and verve that van Gogh brought to his brush; with…
Just as the rest of the country is harvesting the last of summer’s abundance and preparing for winter, our local farmers swing into high gear. Celebrate the off-kilter Arizona growing season with a visit to one of the Valley’s local farmers’ markets. What makes a farmers’ market better than the…
Long before the economy took its most recent nosedive, the state of the contemporary art scene in the Valley of the Sun could be labeled as pretty abysmal. Only a handful of decent contemporary galleries still open their doors, especially ones willing or financially able to show the work of…
T he truest test of any great piece of theater — or any drama whose title is routinely appended with a superlative, has been produced for years on Broadway to great critical acclaim, or been handed any kind of trophy — is to release it for public performance. Dropped onto…
Before he was editor in chief at Marvel Comics–which, by all rights, makes him the man who tells Spider-Man what he can do with himself and the X-Men where to go–Joe Quesada illustrated a comic book titled Ash. The title did not last long; there was, perhaps, little market for…
This may be a strange time to release a thriller about the dangers of corrupt law enforcement, but Training Day — with no explosions, no cheap thrills, no international conspiracies — is about as distant from current East Coast realities as possible. Still, that doesn’t mean that it qualifies as…
Serendipity already feels archaic, like some dusty relic that’s been unearthed from an antique store attic and polished off for display. It reeks of quaint and cute, from its gauzy panoramas of Manhattan at Christmastime to its tattered plot of lovers bound by destiny to its scenes of travelers casually…
It’s generally considered a violation of the unwritten code of film criticism to reveal anything that happens more than halfway into a movie, let alone near the end. But these are unusual circumstances, and anyone attending Stephen Frears’ new film Liam this weekend should really be forewarned. If you think…
Broadway’s Tony Awards — a celebration of New York theater’s best — is not the first place you’d look for controversy. But the award of the coveted Best Musical for 2000 to Susan Stroman’s Contact stirred up some serious debate: Some critics claimed that Contact, which won four Tonys (not…
Arizona cowboy Cody Hancock rides bulls. It’s something that he loves to do and that his father did before him. It’s also how he makes a living. When Hancock, a national champion, is asked why he’s riding in the Justin Boots Bucking Thunder Tour, he says, a little too quickly:…
Rene Balcer, like you and everyone you know, can’t stop talking about what we now refer to simply as The Attack. We may resume our lives, fall back into our routine until it again feels mundane and comforting, but sooner or later, The Attack becomes the only topic of conversation…
“Stories and Souvenirs,” an exhibition of documentary and portrait photography now lining the walls of ASU’s Northlight Gallery, inspires confidence that classic film-based photography, as practiced by camera masters in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, still survives and thrives, despite the world’s present predisposition to All Things Deeply Digital.Located in…
The cynic may notice only how Hearts in Atlantis plays like a Stephen King best-of compilation, a reheating of familiar stories and favorite themes. At times, it feels so much like Stand by Me — with its nostalgic, flashback tale of cherubs and bullies accompanied by sad and weary narration…
