Let's Watch Raising Arizona Together This Thursday

Let's laugh together, Phoenix.

March 31, 2020

Well, Arizona is in the title of the movie, so of course Raising Arizona was filmed here. 20th Century Fox

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It's been a rough few weeks, Phoenix.

Since we can't escape the world and drive over to our local movie theater (unless you go to the drive-in, of course), we wanted to try to do something that would make us laugh for a few hours while maintaining safe and responsible social distancing.

So this Thursday, April 2, at 8 p.m. Arizona time, Phoenix New Times Culture's Twitter account (@phxculture) will host our first viewing party. Our selection will be the 1987 comedy Raising Arizona, which stars Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, and John Goodman. The Coen Brothers, who would go on to helm The Big Lebowski, were the minds behind this zany classic.

Why did we pick this movie, you ask? For one, it's funny as hell. The movie is about a married couple, a cop (Hunter) and a former criminal (Cage), who upon discovering they cannot have children of their own, go about stealing one of the quintuplets from the owner of a chain of unpainted furniture stores. High-jinks ensue, obviously.

But another reason why we selected this movie is that, if the title didn't indicate, the movie was filmed in the Valley, so if you have any memories of seeing a 20-something Cage around town, we would love it if you shared them with us.

How will this work? Currently, the movie is streaming on HBO Now, so if you're a subscriber, you're all set. If not, you can rent the film for $3.99 on iTunes and Amazon Prime (and it's worth every penny). Then grab some popcorn, log onto Twitter, head over to @phxculture account, and watch along with us by using the hashtag #NewTimesMovieClub. The movie is rated PG-13 for some cartoonish violence and cussing, so do with that information what you will.

We hope you'll join us because if it works out, we'd like to do it again with some other Arizona movies while we'e under quarantine.

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