By his own definition, Bruce Campbell is a “midgrade, kind of hammy actor”–a B-movie star, in other words, a man whose career unfolds, like a Swedish porn loop, on Cinemax in the wee small hours of the morning. When I mentioned to a handful of people I was writing about…
I’m being far from hyperbolic when I say that the most searingly memorable art event in the Valley this summer is Iranian-born Shirin Neshat’s critically acclaimed 1998 video installation, Rapture.And, after seeing this 13-minute piece, on loan from Santa Monica’s Broad Art Foundation and staged locally in a stripped-down, shadowy,…
I usually leave playwright Joe Marshall’s comedies having found plenty to like. Marshall regularly offers interesting insights into the human condition; his people are usually at least amusing; his dialogue is often droll and sometimes downright funny. But In a Nutshell, which Marshall is presenting via his own Alternative Theatre…
For almost two decades, Stanley Kubrick wanted to make a film based on Brian Aldiss’ 1969 short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” about a robot child named David who wants only to be “real” so Mummy and Daddy will love him. The late director of 2001: A Space Odyssey…
Sexy Beast, the debut feature from British director Jonathan Glazer, is a riveting, scary and often funny foray into a traditional American genre: the gangster film. Like the western, the gangster film has always been predominantly American turf, but — unlike with the western — every decade or so the…
Those expecting Himalaya to focus upon the beloved traveling carnival ride known for its liberal use of Def Leppard (“Do you wanna go faster?”) are in for a few surprises. For one, this sensuous, exotic film is more like an issue of National Geographic come to life, rich with cultural…
As painful as it can be, there’s no getting around one of the basic truths: Size Does Matter.Formidable rotundity is the most obvious physical trait of comic John Pinette, and it’s the source of his claim to TV fame. Pinette, who performs this weekend at the Tempe Improv, is most…
If you haven’t lost a finger to a too-much-bang-for-your-buck firework, you can count on both hands the number of states that have banned all consumer fireworks. And, yes, Arizona is among them — Arizona, home of Do-It-Yourself Pest Control, drive-thru liquor stores and the right to carry a handgun just…
Alan Cumming is, in no particular order, the following: an actor, a pop icon, a Renaissance man, a sex symbol, a bon viveur and the boy next door. “I am a combination of all those things,” insists the 36-year-old Scot, who punctuates every other sentence with a sly giggle that…
If internal combustion ever becomes obsolete — that is, if the auto industry ever allows internal combustion to become obsolete — whatever will the movies do? Hoofbeats are dramatic, the chug of a steam engine is suspenseful, and the roar of a gasoline-powered vehicle stirs the blood of the self-respecting…
Now here’s a tricky one. Start with a busload of familiar and appealing stars, shacked up together for a couple of weeks in a house in the Hollywood Hills. Assign them their mission: to emulate themselves — sort of — while dutifully reminding us that human relationships can be complicated…
Having recently stolen Shrek as a talking donkey, Eddie Murphy is back in the multiplexes again this summer, this time as a man who can, presumably, talk to donkeys. In the course of Dr. Dolittle 2, in which he plays a veterinarian who can, you know, Talk To The Animals,…
Five years ago, the playwright Eve Ensler achieved a small revolution: Single-handedly, she made countless American men nostalgic for ballet. Really. With The Vagina Monologues, Ensler’s highly acclaimed, OBIE Award-winning stage production, accompanying one’s wife to the ballet — or the opera, for that matter — suddenly didn’t seem so…
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus takes itself seriously when it claims to delight young and old alike — so seriously, in fact, that it has taken the precaution of registering several hallmark phrases, including “Children of All Ages.” Example: Children of All Ages® will thrill to see…
The current release of French director Nicole Garcia’s Place Vendôme — which was nominated for 11 César Awards when it debuted in France three years ago — is yet another sign that the drop-off in French imports that has plagued U.S. screens in recent years is reversing: This is roughly…
In a year inundated with massive movies, it’s a pleasant surprise to note that a truly spectacular adventure has arrived in the form of a Disney cartoon called Atlantis: The Lost Empire.Gushing aside, let us now consider the Atlanteans, the mythic race whom co-directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (Beauty…
It happens every year about this time. Having waited several months, we, the moviegoing public (a good proportion of us, anyway), get all psyched up for the big summer “event” movies. High concepts! Larger-than-life heroes! Great special effects! We go in, and more often than not many of us come…
Brian Setzer knows how to swim against the musical tide. Back in the 1980s, during the early days of the video revolution, he fronted the rockabilly revival band the Stray Cats, a stripped-down trio consisting of three greasy guys playing acoustic standup bass, a minimal drum kit and Setzer’s burning…
For the next five days, Richard Lewis will seldom leave his North Dallas hotel room, hidden away at the far end of the top floor with a view of overpasses, office buildings and distant dark clouds. He will venture out only to visit a couple of radio and television stations,…
Audiences for STOMP, the dance and percussion spectacle that swept the globe in the 1990s, range in age from toddler to octogenarian.It’s no accident these hooligans of dance have such broad appeal. Before STOMP, there was stomp from A to Z: Appalachian Stomp, Kansas City Stomp, Louis Armstrong’s Mahogany Hall…
“There are probably three internationally famous novelists who lived in Arizona for long periods of time: Zane Grey, Edward Abbey and Glendon Swarthout.”In case the international fame of the last of those three scribes — rattled off by his son, Miles Hood Swarthout — has bypassed you, here’s the skinny…
At this moment, Baz Luhrmann, control freak and self-proclaimed ringleader of conspirators “who conspire to something greater than ourselves,” is not in control at all. The cameraman trailing behind him, like a faithful puppy awaiting treats, does not work for the director; rather, he is in the employ of the…
