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...
12/13-12/14 In 1978, Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt formally established an event that had already gained a foothold in the Phoenix area: the Annual Hohokam Commemoration and Indian Market Days Celebration. That year's event drew more than 3,000 people, establishing itself as one of the best markets in the nation. Now...
It took four years, but finally Dark Castle -- Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver's horror division that puts out a movie a year around Halloween -- has made something that's genuinely scary. It may be no coincidence that this time around, Silver has scored a higher-profile cast than usual, and...
Thursday, November 6 Laughter and, well, gaiety are guaranteed at Hamburger Mary's, 5111 North Seventh Street, when Toronto-based comedian David MacLean takes the stage for a one-night standup stint. While MacLean admits that his comedy -- rooted in his experiences as a gay guy -- hasn't always been openly embraced...
Now they are standing, and cheering. Jesus Gonzales is walking -- toward the ring and his professional debut as a boxer. The screams and whistles among the 2,600 attending on this summer night quickly merge into collective noise that bounces around the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix. The din gains strength...
Sometimes something so wonderful appears on the big screen that I want to leap up like a shameless non-professional and hug it. Such is the case early on in Sylvia, a superb drama based on the brief life of writer Sylvia Plath. While boating in Cambridge, England with her beau...
Never mind the trailers, which advertise Cold Creek Manor as some kind of horror-thriller, complete with the image of a hand emerging from the shadows to quiet (yes!) Sharon Stone. Mike Figgis, most recently a maker of unwatchable art-house fare shot on digital video (Timecode, Hotel) that suggests a fetish...
Veronica Guerin isn't at all a bad movie, and some kind things will be said about it here. But cynical appraisal also has its place, so we'll cover that aspect as well. Even before that, a significant disclaimer: Since this review is being written for several New Times publications, which...
Once upon a time, Cher was cool. No, really. She was cool. Long before she became an iconic cottage industry, Cher was a hippie chick folk singer whose naughty songs upset radio programmers and whose eye makeup terrified uptight parents. A full decade before the '70s schlock of "Gypsies, Tramps...
