Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Apparently, it’s high-profile art collectors Jacques and Natasha Gelman, judging from all the glitzy portraits commissioned from famous Mexican artists that now grace the walls of the Phoenix Art Museum as part of “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Twentieth-Century…
I’ve wanted to see a worthwhile production of Once on This Island for more than a decade. I’ve long suspected that Stephen Flaherty’s and Lynn Ahrens’ musicalized Little Mermaid had great potential, that its folksy tale and melodic score could be elevated by the right cast and conductor. But now…
When he was in his 30s, Ivan Reitman made comedies like a young man. His early movies, among them Stripes and Meatballs and Ghostbusters, were messy, cocky, charming, daffy and restless; they did anything for a laugh, even if that meant dousing John Candy in mud or Bill Murray in…
Lakeboat is a film adaptation of one of David Mamet’s earliest plays. It’s set on one of the title vessels, the broad, flat-bottomed freighters that traverse the Great Lakes, and the characters are the tough-talking crewmen. But it’s not a sailing adventure. It’s the opposite of a sailing adventure.There’s no…
How’s this for a Hollywood pitch:”Y’see, Harry, there’s this Roman general — right, like in Gladiator, exactly — and he comes back from a war against the Goths, with . . . what? No, Harry, not the teenage kids who dress in black, the ancient tribe. Right, those Goths, ya…
Typically, communities fail to take note of their artists until they go out and make it in the bigger world. Nonetheless, two who got started here in the Valley, Laurie Eisenhower and Billbob Brown, graciously come home to set dances on local troupes. This expands both the repertory and the…
Tamra Davis is bound by contract not to discuss the film that, at this very moment, she’s editing for release next year. “I’m officially not supposed to do any press for it,” the director says sheepishly, so she offers a few off-the-record comments about the movie, a road-trip comedy-drama starring…
No birthday party in this town seems to be complete without the tradition of breaking a piñata. And why should it? After all, nothing says “Happy Birthday” better than taking a giant wooden stick and beating the complete crap out of, say, a life-size Barbie or a smiling yellow Picachu…
Opening-night performances by small theater companies usually play to half-empty houses — except, apparently, for shows with the phrase “sexual perversity” in their titles. Sexual Perversity in Chicago’s first night was a sellout for Nearly Naked Theatre Company, a fact that so pleased the show’s director that he photographed his…
Remember glee? Perhaps not, given our penchant in recent times to chuck giddy hearts aside in favor of being stupid, obnoxious and mean. But hey, it’s all right, because the fizzy, caffeinated beverage known as Baz Luhrmann seeks to re-create this elusive emotion for all of us, in the form…
Pearl Harbor isn’t really a movie at all, but a highlight reel prepared for a Jerry Bruckheimer career retrospective. The film is as impressive and as empty as any the producer has ever made, most of which seem to have been cut and pasted into it. There’s Top Gun: Two…
Time and Tide — the latest action picture from producer/director Tsui Hark, one of the world’s great entertainers — is a compendium of many of the best (and a few of the worst) traits of Hong Kong action cinema. It’s relentlessly visceral, making you feel as if you’ve been shot…
The wave of nostalgia for ’70s culture that’s overtaken us in the last few years has significantly rebuilt disco’s reputation. Those of us who wish that it would do the same for that decade’s slick soul music are the target audience for the ’70s Soul Jam, an extravaganza of a…
With true summer upon us, and seasons wrapping up, the theater options start to dwindle severely in the Valley. This is the time when hard-core first-nighters have to search for some off-the-beaten-track stage action. Here are a few such options: Once on This Island: Black Theatre Troupe closes out its…
The publicist asks if I’d like to speak to D.A. Pennebaker to commemorate the 60th birthday of Bob Dylan, which falls on May 24. She asks this because, during the spring of 1965, Pennebaker made a documentary about Dylan’s tour of England, Dont Look Back, which captured a drained, cagey…
To say that no actor creates a perfect Hamlet is no more than saying that no person leads a perfect life. It’s the richest part in English-language drama, maybe in Western drama, and every actor lucky enough to get a crack at it can hope only to grab an aspect…
Like nearly all Merchant/Ivory productions, The Golden Bowl, their latest book-to-film adaptation, is a feast for the eyes, with choice real estate, exquisite interior design and dazzling costumes all bathed in a golden light that not only enriches the colors but helps to give the settings a sense of depth…
The somber figure of Ingmar Bergman no longer looms over the film world like a guilty conscience, but the great Swedish director has spawned enough artistic descendants to keep us supplied with thorny philosophical and ethical questions for decades to come. Faithless, the second film that actress Liv Ullmann has…
Among the venerable Valley traditions of the Memorial Day weekend is getting out of town, usually to the cooler climes up north. Phoenix Symphony has contrived to do this — the outfit has a weekendlong stand, playing three concerts at Sedona Cultural Park. This also provides the rest of us…
On the day after Memorial Day, Phoenix Public Library hosts a discussion of a forgotten chapter from the Great War saga. Journalist and filmmaker Frank Abe will be present at a screening of his documentary Conscience and the Constitution on Tuesday, May 29, at Burton Barr Central Library. Abe’s subject…
My faithful theater companion and I normally agree about the quality of the shows we see every weekend. When we don’t, it’s he who is more generous and forgiving about a program’s shortcomings. Last weekend, during the long ride home from faraway Theater Works, we bandied words about the company’s…
The new musical revue at Phoenix Theatre epitomizes everything I loathe about the genre: It’s formulaic and predictable, full of half-written songs whose tunes I’d forgotten by the time I hit the parking lot. Why, then, did I so enjoy I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change?Almost certainly because this…
