It hasn’t always been easy to pare Claude Monet’s artistic achievements from his popularity. In the later half of his life (1840 to 1926), his paintings sold so well that the writer Emile Zola suggested that he might be unloading too many unfinished works that were barely dry. More recently,…
“That reminds me of the movies Marty made about New York,” stammered Lou Reed somewhere in the mid-’80s. “All those frank and brutal movies that are so brillyunt.” It was a clumsy, rhyme-impaired album track (“Doing the Things That We Want To” from New Sensations), but, as has often been…
Horned, fanged, cat-eyed and pointy-eared, the colossal green head glowered down on both lanes of I-10. Tempe Diablo Stadium, over the parking lot of which the Dante-esque visage floated, had never seemed so aptly named. “I don’t think this is the home of the Anaheim Angels today,” remarked the publicist…
Ira Glass has a story to tell you. Actually, he has lifetimes’ worth of stories to tell you. And there are a lot of people who enjoy hearing them. Beginning on Chicago’s public radio outlet in late 1995, This American Life is now heard on more than 350 stations. The…
Viewing Monet paintings on the Internet is sort of like watching Lawrence of Arabia on the TV at a Tempe sports bar. The medium is tragically inappropriate for displaying works of such subtlety and texture. On the Phoenix Art Museum’s Web site, for instance, impressionistic brush strokes and computer monitor…
What a relief finally to see a perfect production of The Baltimore Waltz. I’ve witnessed four near-miss interpretations of this difficult play by other companies, but the Actors Theatre of Phoenix production currently at the Herberger is so well-realized that I discovered elements I didn’t realize I was missing when…
In a decade that has seen the mass market of the cellular phone and the emergence of the Internet, it’s hardly surprising that more artists than ever are turning to technology for expression. This new breed of artists comprises computer geeks, electrical engineers and quantum physicists. Two of these science…
If you aren’t wowed by Black Theatre Troupe’s production of Willie and Esther, don’t blame the actors. The pair of talented performers who traverse Thom Gilseth’s vivid set give us their all, but ultimately they can’t overcome flabby writing and misguided direction. Willie and Esther is a comedy with a…
David Fincher needs a hug, the poor bastard. Or possibly a diaper change. Ever since 1992, when he ruined the Alien series with the excrescence of his pointless, senseless third installment, he’s been making the same bratty, obnoxious movie over and over again: gloom, doom, indestructible protagonist, bureaucratic evil, quasi-religious…
The everyman hero of the horror movie Bats, a small-town Texas sheriff played by Lou Diamond Phillips, is given an odd character trait. After he and some other people have barricaded themselves into a school building and are awaiting attack by a flock of mutant killer bats terrorizing his little…
Based on his directorial debut, there are three things we can safely say about Antonio Banderas: 1) He’s an actor’s director — he can pick a good cast and coax great performances from them; 2) he knows how to make a good image and where to point the camera; 3)…
“I do these one-man shows based on my life, but fictionalized, though the weirdest stuff tends to be real.” That’s how Josh Kornbluth explains what he does in the theater. “In Red Diaper Baby, I talk about how my father bursts into my room naked, covered with talcum powder, singing…
The doyenne of dance theater, Pina Bausch, first came to the Valley during a 1996 tour of Nur Du (Only You) with her Tanztheater Wuppertal. During that same tour, Newsweek called Bausch the world’s most influential, and most controversial, choreographer. Indeed, she’s been provoking imitators and gasps ever since she…
Even without the impressive singing and dancing that make Play On! a gratifying evening of theater, its princely pedigree is enough to sell some tickets. A musical tribute to jazz legend Duke Ellington with a book based in Shakespeare, Play On! is Arizona Theatre Company’s most ambitious, most enjoyable production…
Occasionally, while watching a particularly tedious play, I’ll find myself wishing that the characters — who up to that point have probably been standing around mouthing inanities — would break into a line dance or maybe begin shouting obscenities or braying like animals. This sort of nonsense happens often, much…
Steven Soderbergh may have had some rocky times after his 1989 breakthrough with sex, lies, and videotape, but these days he’s on a roll. Last year he produced Pleasantville and directed Out of Sight, two of the year’s most praised films. This year he has The Limey, a complex, introspective…
The makers of The Story of Us have a premise they want to share. Check it out — according to this movie, men and women often have different responses to life, love and sex, and this can sometimes result in conflict and tension in a marriage. And you thought American…
Am I a traitor to my gender because I didn’t find this unabashed film about female sexuality erotic, brave, or even — can I say it — interesting? The ironically titled Romance, directed by the audacious French filmmaker Catherine Breillat (36 Fillette), has become something of a cause célèbre wherever…
Hal Holbrook has enjoyed the career that all actors dream of having. Since the 1940s, he has worked continuously onstage, in movies and on television. His acting has received numerous honors including Tonys, Obies, and five Emmy awards. His film work stretches from ’60s kitsch classics like Wild in the…
Over the course of the coming months, ASU Public Events, in its 1999-2000 season, is presenting the A3 program, as in Asia, Arizona, and the Arts. This celebration of the large Asian-American community here in the western United States and the ever-growing population of international students at the university features…
Crack and tweak are all that matter to Kim. Everything else is just part of the plot to procure it. Only through a combined sense of panic and fearlessness does she manage to collect enough cash to kill off another day. Kim is a self-described prostitute, 39 years old. She’s…
Tempe photographer Bob Carey will do almost anything for art. He willingly shaves his entire body, slathers it with silver paint, tightly wraps his torso, thighs and head in fishing line, garrots his genitalia and pastes clear plastic dots over his skull (ears and lips included). He’s also photographed himself…
