With the passing of Frank Sinatra, three generations have felt the passing of an era. Sinatra and “pallies” Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. defined swing and swagger, crooning, cocktails and casinos. Labeled “The Rat Pack,” the legendary trio had enough charm, humor and appeal to swell into today’s neo-lounge…
Here they come, walkin’ down our street. Three of the grooviest guys who ever filled the pages of Tiger Beat. Blue-eyed Bobby Sherman, darling Davy Jones and the adorably dimpled Peter Noone. Yes, the Teen Idols Tour is coming to our town! Three boss guys who were every happening teeny…
Pageant is not a drag show. Although its leads are all women played by men in wigs and dresses, this kitschy comedy isn’t aimed at gay audiences or fans of cross-dressing. Pageant plays it straight, its premise closer to the real-life beauty contests it spoofs than the drag fest it’s…
In the little Pacific Northwest town of Cradle Bay, troubled, “underachieving” teenagers appear to be an endangered species. One day a kid will be a hoodlum or a pothead or a slut, and the next he or she will have joined the “Blue Ribbon Club,” whose members all have tidy…
Do we really need to see the great Kevin Spacey fuming and fussing in one of those we-do-things-my-way-or-we-don’t-do-them-at-all roles? In The Negotiator, he’s playing Chris Sabian, an expert hostage negotiator for the Chicago police, whose job it is to talk down Samuel L. Jackson’s Danny Roman, another police expert who…
Though Ryan Noble’s documentary A Day With Sheriff Joe is just 29 minutes long, its title is apt. Half an hour of listening to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio talk really does feel like putting in a full day. It could have been longer–feature-length, even–had Noble used all of the…
Well I’m leavin’ this morning, baby, ridin’ that new highway, Yeah, I’m leavin’ this morning, baby, ridin’ that new highway, And the more you cry, the more you’re gonna drive me away. These lines are from a bluesy cut called “New Highway” on Blackjack David, the fine new HighTone album…
thursday july 30 One of the more lighthearted and pleasingly unpretentious of the area galleries, Wilde-Meyer wraps up its summer show “Fun With Flora, Fauna and Fruit,” which includes works by such faves as CarterHolman, Jacqueline Rochester, Brian Cook, Chuck Davison, Dyanna Hesson, L.A. Hecht and Rudi van Brussel. Also…
I was one of those guys holding his head and groaning when, in the early Eighties, Ted Turner and his pals began colorizing classic films. I hated that notion of making old movies more accessible to young audiences from the get-go, but it took me a little longer to get…
The first shot in Steven Spielberg’s remarkable World War II epic Saving Private Ryan is an American flag with the sun behind it. It’s a delicate, almost diaphanous image–the fabric has the transparent delicacy of a chrysalis. This is the perfect introduction to a movie about the fragility–and fortitude–of compassion…
The deferral of grief through sex is the theme of Under the Skin, the fierce, occasionally impressive feature debut of Brit writer-director Carine Adler. The central character, Iris (Samantha Morton), a 19-year-old in suburban Liverpool, loses her mother (Rita Tushingham) to a swift, unexpected cancer. Iris’ married, pregnant older sister…
Recently I asked the director and screenwriter and several of the stars of Saving Private Ryan what their favorite war movies are. Their selections: Steven Spielberg (director): “My favorite, favorite war movie is Battleground [MGM, 1949]. It’s the story of the Ardennes, and the “Battling Bastards of Bastogne,” directed by…
The ads proclaim that Cathy Rigby is Peter Pan, but of course that’s not entirely true. Peter Pan was a lot of things, but he was never an Olympic gymnast or a nationally televised shill for feminine protection. Still, Rigby and the ageless Mr. Pan do have several things in…
You are getting sleepy . . . veeeery sleeepeee . . . Hey! Wake up! Pay attention! Stage hypnosis seems like it should belong to another age of show business, but a surprising number of performers remain on the national circuit with acts in which they put audience volunteers into…
thursday july 23 “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, a huge tube of sunblock, a bottle of rattlesnake antivenom serum, and thou . . .” Yes, the romantic side of our state was chosen as the subject of the very first episode of Romancing America, a new show…
We may never know why sports elevated the ancient Grecian imagination to Praxiteles, and has lowered the current Phoenician one to the art at Bank One Ballpark. But the modern impulse to turn every little sports-related thing into a marketing scheme may have something to do with it. Diamondbacks spokesmen…
Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame formula does not apply to undiscovered playwrights. They get only seven minutes, if they’re lucky, rarely get their work read or produced, and are seldom heard from beyond tiny theater circles. Phoenix, ever a cultural backwater, has founded few programs aimed at nurturing up-and-coming…
Smoke Signals is a rare drama about modern life on an Indian reservation that, unlike Hollywood fare such as Dances With Wolves, has been written and directed by Native Americans. It’s a film that feels genuine and heartfelt–it understands the problems its characters are experiencing. It’s often a quirky, whimsical…
In The Mask of Zorro, Anthony Hopkins plays the eponymous masked hero as if he were doing Shakespeare. He’s trying to turn a kitsch hero into a real one, and his efforts are so weirdly off-key that you don’t know whether to applaud or titter. This dolorous Don Diego de…
For those who thought Dumb and Dumber signaled the end of the world as we know it, my advice is duck and cover. Comedy avatars Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the odium savants behind what some have considered Jim Carrey’s Hamlet–as well as its follow-up, the mondo bowlerama Kingpin–have turned their…
Something about Arizona brings out the rugged–or eccentric–individualist in people. It makes a certain kind of sense that the breeding ground of Barry Goldwater would also draw the Rainbow People’s convention. If there’s going to be a harmonic convergence, maybe it really will happen in Sedona. Build a Biosphere and…
thursday july 16 That least egotistical species of actors–puppeteers–convenes in Tempe for the Pacific Southwest Regional Puppeteers of America Festival, from Thursday, July 16, through Sunday, July 19, at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel, 60 East Fifth Street. The weekend, which includes public performances, educators’ workshops and such prestigious guests…
