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Phoenix NAACP Chief Don Harris Takes Heat After Sexist Remarks

The president of the Maricopa County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People took heat and nearly resigned following an article in New Times about sexist comments he made about a TV reporter. The NAACP leader, Don Harris, didn't return a voice mail.  Harris got in...
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Kung Fu Panda 3 Insists That Wars Do Make One Great

There's essentially one joke in the Kung-Fu Panda movies. A ridiculous, adorable creature executes some extravagant action-flick flourish — vaulting over roofs, dropping a bad guy, striking a poster-perfect superhero pose. Then the battle music fades and that adorable creature breaks badass character to remind us it's totally relatable, even...
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The Best Things to Do in Metro Phoenix This Weekend

New Times picks the best things to do in metro Phoenix from Friday, March 25, through Sunday, March 27. Comedy on Fire For the better part of three years, comedian Matt Micheletti has hosted Comedy on Fire, a monthly stand-up show made up almost entirely of local comics. The nights have...
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Phoenix NAACP Boss Quits Over “Tits” Remarks

Don Harris is no longer the leader of Arizona's largest NAACP chapter due to a sexist comment he made last week following a community meeting about six Ahwatukee teenagers' use of a racial epithet. Harris, a local lawyer and former U.S. Marine Corps officer, had been under fire for several...
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Cancer Drama Miss You Already Boasts One of the Year’s Top Scripts

Toni Collette rages through Catherine Hardwicke's cancer weepie Miss You Already like a fire in a chain restaurant. The film around her is good, welcoming fare, the kind that snobs always underestimate. But then Collette, playing a vain patient bereft at losing her hair and her ability to wear seven-inch...
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The 10 Best Cameos on Girls

The Queens of Quirk from Girls will be back on HBO this Sunday to kick off their fifth season. It doesn't seem that long ago that we first met Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham), her best friend Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams), college friend Jessa Johannason (Jemima Kirke), and Jessa's cousin Shoshanna...
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Jennifer Lawrence and The Hunger Games Transcend the Blockbuster

With the spectacular The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2, the best in the series, Jennifer Lawrence closes out the franchise that made her the biggest star of her generation. Since The Hunger Games started, in 2012, she's starred in four of them and only six of everything else. Luckily,...
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The Weirdest Versions of Frankenstein in TV, Literary, and Film History

Frankenstein is, arguably, the greatest of all monsters. There’s a sense in which the very name “Frankenstein,” applied not to the scientist but to his creation, has become virtually a synonym for “monster,” for something created but uncontrollable, something that destroys its maker, something grotesquely out of place in the...
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Phoenix NAACP Leader Defends His Credibility After Sexist Remarks

Don Harris, president of Arizona's largest NAACP chapter, will find out on Monday whether he'll be fired for saying a TV reporter had "nice tits" just after a meeting about six high school girls' use of a racial slur. Under the hot-lamp since New Times published an article on Wednesday...
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Best Film Festival

Phoenix Film FestivalForget the Oscars and Sundance. What local filmmakers and cinephiles really get excited about is the annual Phoenix Film Festival. Bringing in nationally known titles, directors, and heartthrobs — er, talent — is obviously cool and exciting, but it’s the spotlight this festival shines on the Valley’s own talent that makes us swoon. Plus, PFF […]
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You Can’t Miss These 10 Standout Toronto Festival Films

Summer officially starts to end with the dawn of film festival season, when we critics pack our suitcases and trek to the Toronto International Film Festival to see what great, smart, small movies are going to make a run at the art house, or even the Oscars. The 10 best...
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Best Jazz Radio Show

Classic Jazz with Blaise Lantana on KJZZ 91.5 FMTune into Phoenix’s NPR affiliate on weekday nights and you’ll get a treat: jazz music for hours and hours, a blend of classics from Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, and J.J. Johnson to modern talents like Nicholas Payton and Bruce Dudley. The playlist from 8 to 10 p.m. is curated by Blaise Lantana, KJZZ’s music director. […]
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Relax. The Force Awakens Is the Third Good Star Wars Movie

George Lucas is the L. Ron Hubbard of Hollywood. Both men were sci-fi dreamers turned mega-millionaires who spun their pulp adventures into a religion. Tap the power within yourself, they urged. The faithful forked over their dollars. Then both Lucas and Hubbard mucked up their simple premise with add-ons like...
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The 33‘s True Story Works Best When It’s Underground

How do you dramatize the unthinkable? On August 5, 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped when the 100-year-old gold and copper mine in which they were working collapsed around them. For weeks, no one knew if they were alive or dead. But 69 days later, after a team of international...
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Why I’m Still Watching The Muppets

The Muppets doesn't work, exactly, but I'm still watching. As a relative outsider to the 60-year Muppets franchise, I've long suspected that early imprinting is the key to loving Jim Henson's gaudy, unblinking rags. I've never felt a particular need to watch pieces of felt tell Borscht Belt–style jokes, and...
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Why Alternative Theater Is Flourishing in Metro Phoenix

In the first scene of this three-act play — call it Who’s Afraid of Alternative Theater? or maybe Revenge of Master Ronald and the Boys — we find thespian game-changer Ron May standing in the dusty courtyard of a big, shiny, downtown playhouse. Circled by a small group of well-wishers, he is smoking...
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Arizona DPS to Discuss Another Possible I-10 Shooting Incident This Afternoon

The Arizona Department of Public Safety and Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office will hold a joint press conference Sunday afternoon to discuss another incident possibly related to string of shootings along the Interstate 10 highway that’s terrorized Phoenix motorists for the last two weeks. This latest incident happened late Saturday night,...
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Trumbo Honors a Blacklisted Screenwriter With Drama He Would Have Cut

Bryan Cranston parades through Trumbo, a wiki-pageant of shorthand history, like he's a costumed kid playing Actor Bryan Cranston at a Disney park. As blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a man given to mannered diction, Cranston layers movieland falseness over the scraped-raw heart of his Breaking Bad triumph. Remember how you...
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All Angelina Jolie Pitt’s By the Sea Offers Is Location

It's clear why Angelina Jolie Pitt became a star. She was a sexpot with talent, and, just as crucially, her feline beauty was a sexpot breed we'd never seen. Past glamazons like Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, and Jayne Mansfield trailed a whiff of insecurity. We could sense that they were...