Here's a subject with which no one should ever have to grapple: Is this new version of The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane as the comic-book assassin, better than the 1989 adaptation with Dolph Lundgren? They both offer slight variations on a tale first told in a 1974 Spider-Man comic, where...
The good news first: I've recently had the pleasure of eating at the hippest new sushi joint in the Valley, with maki rolls so innovative, and yet professionally prepared, that I'd almost be willing to move upstairs from the place so that I could get my daily fix. Now the...
Gordon McGuire reaches into the back of his mother's fridge and pulls out the front part of his right foot. After eight months in formaldehyde, the skin on the body part is ghostly white. The piece of foot is the size and shape of a turkey wing. The skin is...
Sun 2/29 Face it -- the invite to Sunday's 76th Academy Awards wasn't lost in the mail. So instead of spending a king's ransom on Vera Wang couture or an Armani tux in hopes of sneaking in, better go with Plan B. The Oscar Night America Gala at the Ritz-Carlton...
In the beginning, there was The Evil Dead, and Stephen King looked down upon it and saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let there be Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, that the message of writer-director Sam Raimi be spread across the land!" So it was written, so...
Oh dear. Angelina Jolie's made another bad film. Is it too soon to give up on her yet? There's no denying that Angelina's sexy as hell. The tattoos, the knife collection, the exhibitionist streak, the bisexual vibe she gives off . . . totally hot, no question. Given her work...
Robby Hammock remembers his every glorious hop, skip and jump into the arms of Randy Johnson after the Perfect Game last month. "I know I looked like Mini-Me out there on the mound, but I was so flippin' excited," says Hammock, the unlikely starting catcher of the Arizona Diamondbacks and...
"Michael Caine is a revelation!" declares the Jeffrey Lyons quote currently appearing on ads for The Statement. Lyons is right, but not in the way you might expect. Indeed, Caine's performance here is revelatory -- who knew he could be this boring? Insufferable, yes -- Oscar aside, his mangled "American"...
Thursday, February 26 Three intertwining stories of terminally ill patients and their loved ones make up the compelling drama of The Shadowbox, presented by Phoenix College Thursday, February 26, through Saturday, February 28. "Even though the setting is a hospice of sorts, the play is neither morbid nor melancholy, but...
Jim Henson, Sesame Street's visionary founder and lead puppeteer, was famous for never looking back. Bursting with creativity, Henson moved so swiftly from one project to the next that little attention was given to curating the countless music albums that sprang from his popular children's TV show. Parents, toddlers and...
Some acts of courage command everyone's respect -- the firefighter's return to a burning house to rescue a child, the infantryman's sacrifice of self for a wounded comrade, the weary black woman's refusal to yield her seat on a segregated bus. Sometimes, though, courage can feel clouded -- especially when...
The nation's biggest garbage company is everywhere in Mobile, one of Maricopa County's smallest communities. "Thank You Waste Management," reads a sign in front of the school, just above a message noting that the sign itself was paid for by Waste Management. Headquartered 1,200 miles away in Houston, Waste Management...
2/28-2/29 Just say kampai on Saturday, February 28, when the Matsuri Festival toasts 20 years of celebrating Japanese culture in downtown. A traditional Japanese sake keg cracking ceremony launches the weekend of festivities, followed by a lively procession of lion dancers and drummers parading its way throughout the park. Entertainment...
You gotta be careful with hip-hop. The members of Impact, a student dance club at Millennium High School in Goodyear, knew that. Last October, club members put together a mix tape of various artists. They used beats from this rapper, lyrics from that one, and made a dance routine every...
Bill Gallo -- Even dedicated art-house regulars missed Pavel Lounguine's Tycoon: A New Russian when it was released this fall, but this intrigue-spiced tale of a ruthless yet surprisingly sympathetic Russian oligarch worked equally well as a crime thriller and a course in Russian fiscal policy (or the lack of...
You can hear one of the best brass bands in town Sunday nights, in a converted old McDonald's. Luckily, the food is much better at Tacos y Mariscos Kora. And if you're really lucky, some deep-pocketed patron will shell out some extra cash to keep Banda Santa Cruz, a 14-member...
It was only a few days ago that Shane Carruth, software engineer-turned-filmmaker, was ready to walk away from the money on the table and keep his movie--78 minutes' worth of cheapo celluloid that had, in a Utah instant, become as valuable as strands of gold. He had stopped answering his...
Two years ago, Harvey Weinstein, who runs Miramax Films with an iron fist that no doubt smells of cigarettes and meat, bought a Hong Kong-made movie called Hero for $20 million. That is an extraordinary amount of money for a foreign-language film made by a director, Zhang Yimou, relatively unknown...
I was puttering about in my housecoat and slippers the other day, listening to Puccini's Turandot and fiddling with my collection of foreign bottle caps, when I spotted the purple top for a bottle of Young's Double Chocolate Stout. One of my favorite brews, its company logo features a ram...
It has become a subject of much discussion and debate amongst film fetishists in recent weeks: For which movie will Sean Penn win the Academy Award, Mystic River or 21 Grams? Perhaps this seems like so much jockeying for blurbs on a movie poster or a newspaper advertisement -- Sean...
Back in January of 2003, New Line Cinema released Final Destination 2, a horror movie in which the antagonist was the unseen hand of death itself. All of the main characters knew their time was up, but they didn't know how, or when, so they existed in a constant state...
Russell Crowe to his agent: "More Oscar-bait. Now." Agent, considering his cut of Crowe's $20 million payday: "Yes, sir." A possible scenario, anyway. Thus, Crowe is back in another iconic, self-serious performance, and his beefy mug will stare down upon us from this season's heroic movie posters until Tom Cruise...
