If theater is a microcosm of the universe, then we must be a godforsaken, consumer-driven society, more interested in what’s under the tree than how it came to grow there. I’m not a Christian, but I’m concerned with the low state of holiday plays in our fair city: Not one…
Beavis and Butt-head, the slow-witted, lewd-minded, giggling, teenaged sofa reptiles from MTV, may be the most acquired taste in current pop culture–for adults, at least. At a quick glance, your reaction may be revulsion at the crude animation and the repetitive gags. But let the show’s subtle rhythms work on…
Lots of hearts are in the right place in Rob Reiner’s Ghosts of Mississippi, but none is beating. Scripted by Lewis Colick (who wrote Unlawful Entry) and based on the true story of how the killer of civil rights activist Medgar Evers was finally brought to justice after three trials,…
The stodgy works of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, makers of Howards End and Jefferson in Paris, have encouraged the sad notion that costume dramas must be leaden and respectable. Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility helped rehabilitate the form, and now Patrice Leconte’s Ridicule ventilates it with yet more fresh…
Why a movie of The Crucible now? Arthur Miller’s play about the Salem witchcraft trials was first staged on Broadway in 1953, when McCarthyism was still in flower, and it was not a resounding success. Now, of course, it’s a staple of rep theaters and high school and college stages,…
Western civilization has taken its fair share of direct hits over the ages, but never has it been threatened with destruction by such markedly unempowered foes as Beavis and Butt-head, which debuted on MTV in 1993. How unempowered? Consider that those who most rightfully should be offended by the doltish…
thursday december 19 Baby, It’s Bright Outside: ZooLights; Fiesta of Light and Downtown Holiday Tree Tour; Ahwatukee-Foothills Festival of Lights: Phoenix Zoo, 455 North Galvin Parkway, in Papago Park, is garbed in its usual Technicolor dreamcoat during the facility’s fifth annual ZooLights display. The fun continues from 6 to 9…
’tis the season “Brunch With The Velveteen Rabbit”: Accompanied kids meet and eat with the cast of Childsplay’s “24-carrot” holiday gift to the Valley at this fund raiser. Seatings are scheduled at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, December 21, in the Terrace Dining Room at the Phoenician resort, 6000…
Theater has been braving the AIDS pandemic for more than a decade. Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart in 1985 was the first of a subgenre of plays that has evolved beyond commentary on the crisis to a more artful form of entertainment. Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz, which is being…
Planet Earth Multi-Cultural Theatre has made a name for itself with overwrought dramas and dark translations of prominent plays. Whether this uncommon company is presenting a contemporary comedy or a Shakespearean tragedy, its productions are distinguished by stacks of video screens and crowds of women in singed nightgowns, stroking potfuls…
Whitney Houston has had a Movie Star Moment–just not in a movie. Near the end of the “Saving All My Love for You” video, she turns toward the camera with a luminous smile that wilts into heartbreak when she realizes she’s been dropped by her, um, boyfriend. It’s a moment…
Some amusing stuff about sports agentry drowns in the emotional shallows of Jerry Maguire, which stars Tom Cruise (in the title role) as a hotshot dealmaker whose first bout of conscience torpedoes his future at his firm, the monolithic Sports Management International. After visiting a hospitalized hockey player who skates…
Forget Independence Day. If you really want to see Earth get it, you can’t do any better than Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!. It’s a destructo orgy without any phony-baloney sanctimony about the fellowship of man–or spaceman. Burton isn’t interested in intergalactic amity; he’s not even interested in preserving the Earth…
thursday december 12 Baby, It’s Bright Outside: ZooLights; Fiesta of Light and Downtown Holiday Tree Tour; Ahwatukee-Foothills Festival of Lights: Phoenix Zoo, 455 North Galvin Parkway, in Papago Park, is garbed in its usual Technicolor dreamcoat during the facility’s fifth annual ZooLights display. The after-hours fun continues from 6 to…
’tis the season Arizona Snow Day: In conjunction with Tempe’s Fantasy of Lights (see the Events listing), the city hosts this free event from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, December 14, at “Plazita de Descanzo,” Sixth Street and Mill. Highlights include a freak fall of 12 tons of snow,…
The title is Accelerando, but the current production at Arizona State University’s Prism Theatre isn’t a musical. It’s a romance, of sorts. She (Roxane Policare) and He (Stan Weightman Jr.) are young New Yorkers who meet at a party. They go back to his place, undress, and tussle under the…
In the golden age of Hollywood, no less than the likes of Frank Capra owned Christmas on the big screen. But if you want Proof Number 496 of how far things have fallen, consider that in the ’90s, holiday cinema is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chris Columbus–hired gun of…
Hope doesn’t spring eternal: It flickers like an old streetlamp or porch light. That’s the bittersweet message of this beguiling, humane farce about three Jersey City buddies who spiral ever deeper down on their luck while planning to heist an armored car. Sid (William Forsythe), Jerry (Adam Trese) and Russ…
’tis the season “Children’s Holiday Nutcracker Party”: The second annual fund raiser for Ballet Arizona includes a costume party, entertainment, storytelling and lunch. Seatings are scheduled at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, December 8, at the Ritz-Carlton, 2401 East Camelback. Admission is $30, which includes the meal; all proceeds…
thursday december 5 Baby, It’s Bright Outside: Fiesta of Light and Downtown Holiday Tree Tour, Ahwatukee-Foothills Festival of Lights: The City of Phoenix’s free Fiesta and its second annual, self-guided Tree Tour continue nightly, through Wednesday, January 1; guided excursions start at 6:30 p.m. each Saturday, through December 28. For…
The case of Andres Serrano, whose photographs are on view at the Bentley Gallery, suggests that your household variety of aversion doesn’t get artists anywhere anymore; that it takes a downright revulsion to make their careers. Up until 1989, when his photograph “Piss Christ,” depicting a crucifix immersed in two…
The strengths of Sam Shepard’s plays are in the peculiar humor he brings to them. In most of his better-known work, the playwright/actor blends comedy and tragedy, pulling laughs from unseemly places. A new staging of Shepard’s True West that’s produced by a local movie company called Sudden Death Pictures…
