There is a killing late in Gladiator, Ridley Scott’s new heroic epic, and it is one of those wonderfully cathartic extinguishings that make a wide-eyed audience rise and cheer. After several brutal battles, after much bloodshed, after considerable suffering both needless and entertaining, a blade finds its mark, and a…
The word “International” has been added to its title, but this year’s edition of the Saguaro Film Festival has become the fest without a country. After debuting at Harkins Camelview 5 seven years ago, Arizona Film Society’s shindig for indies has knocked around the Valley, landing, in one year or…
It is difficult to reconcile American perceptions of Iran, a rigidly authoritarian Islamic fundamentalist society, with the captivating and compassionate films that emanate from the country. Most of these pictures, including the 1995 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’Or winner The White Balloon and the 1998 Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar nominee…
Boys Don’t Cry hasn’t garnered the kind of box-office returns you’d expect from an Oscar winner. That’s understandable. No matter its brilliance, the film’s pallor of rural white trash dysfunction was probably too unsettling for that cash-cow megaplex demographic. After all, it was, as the Sunday Herald in Scotland recently…
The Asian-American community has never been well served by our mass media or popular culture. Japanese and Chinese images are pretty much limited to servants, “inscrutable” stereotypes, squinty-eyed evildoers or outright racist portrayals by clueless Occidental actors. The Cartwright boys had loyal ol’ Hop Sing to clean up after them…
The death last month of psilocybin-mushroom philosopher and rave culture Svengali Terrence McKenna generated a performance-art void that London-based spoken-word sensation Ian Winn is primed to replenish. One man with a microphone, a multimedia screen and a mind on hyper-drive, Winn has a repertoire that is a mix of satirical…
As I swing open the heavy, carved wooden door to the West Valley Art Museum in Surprise, the odd juxtaposition of the serene paintings of Phoenix’s own 92-year-old Philip Curtis with the in-your-face artwork of 78-year-old Leonard Baskin throws me completely off guard. I’ve come to see “Leonard Baskin: The…
Before the fall of the Soviet Union, you wouldn’t have measured a woman’s commitment to capitalism by the number of Communist posters she hung on her walls. But in these post-Cold War days, the West’s reply to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s early 1960s boast “We will bury you” has evolved…
The voice-mail message begins with the caller identifying himself in a clear, sharp tone: “Hey, this is Chris Thompson, executive producer of Action and Ladies Man, and I hear you’re trying to get a hold of me…” Long pause. “For some ungodly reason.” Then, in a split second, the voice…
Although its themes are about as revelatory as those of the average Cathy comic strip (clothes don’t fit, job too busy, male not clairvoyant, AACK!), there’s something irrefutably charming about Philippa “Pip” Karmel’s debut feature, Me Myself I. The editor of Academy darling Shine has scripted a laundry list of…
Why aren’t there more submarine movies? It seems like a no-brainer formula for success: claustrophobic setting, invisible enemy whose approach must be estimated, inherent threat of both drowning and depth pressure, and from a budgetary standpoint, one key set is really all that’s needed. There’s even a solid track record…
Love & Basketball is divided into four quarters; thank God there’s no overtime. The directorial debut from writer Gina Prince-Bythewood, who once penned scripts for A Different World and Felicity, is a film built upon transitions so weak and obvious it’s astonishing the entire thing doesn’t collapse on itself. You…
Improbably, given the geography and the general cultural malaise of the Valley, a grand finale of world-class quality closes National Dance Week here. Since the week began on April 21, presenters from Tempe to central Phoenix offered audiences dance by leading American choreographers — Sean Curran, Moses Pendleton and Kevin…
“Know what I mean, know what I mean, nudge nudge? Say no more, say no more.” No more need be said. Eric Idle, the creator of these immortal lines and many of the other most beloved routines to come out of the one-of-a-kind British TV comedy Monty Python’s Flying Circus…
A mildly retarded man who works in a grocery store believes he is Batman, the Dark Knight on a mission to free Gotham City from the clutches of The Joker. An actress playing the role of Wonder Woman becomes a spokeswoman, then scapegoat, for the Commie witch-hunters working for the…
Phoenix video artist Sloane McFarland is the first to admit that he’s not quite sure exactly what “PHACAEANS,” his laptop video installation at ASU Art Museum’s Experimental Gallery at Matthews Center, is about. A part of the extensive citywide programming for “Sites Around the City,” the museum’s current art exhibition…
Despite the lack of a single compelling reason to create — or to witness — a remount of Hair, the version now playing at Planet Earth Theatre is as good a production as you’re likely to see. This Hair — which really ought to be retitled Hairpiece, given the number…
What is it with filmmakers and mental retardation? It seems as though use of the differently abled as a central theme ranks second only to troubled childhood when it comes time to make a “personal” film. The connection between the two is fairly obvious: the artist as gentle innocent besieged…
“You don’t come up to people’s doors!” yells a woman to a pair of Mormon missionaries, before slamming her door in their faces. The scene, near the beginning of the film God’s Army, is intended to illustrate the difficulties of Mormon missionary work, which I suppose it does. But my…
In the rich mythology of the New Yorker, a periodical renowned for the quality of its writing and the quirks of its writers, no legend carries more weight than that of Joseph Mitchell. On the occasion of the magazine’s 75th anniversary, it is currently great sport among the literati to…
“I am preparing to go to a meeting at a studio called Big Ticket — a potential deal for a sitcom,” says Richard Jeni. “I’m thinking of calling it Everybody Loves Raymond, because that seems to work. Why reinvent the wheel?” Though he’s a two-decade veteran of the comedy-club scene…
Glendale’s cool, intriguing, underrated downtown is, sadly, about to get a little less cool, intriguing and underrated. One of the antique mecca’s wittiest shops, Saints & Sinners, is about to close its doors in favor of the more cost-efficient online market. Asked to define S&S’s stock-in-trade, co-proprietor Shad Kvetko’s initial…
