Oscar Fuchslocher first came to the United States from his native Chile in 1989, as an exchange student at Ironwood High School in Glendale. He liked Arizona so much he came back the next year, this time as a visitor on a six-month visa. The visa was renewed, but eventually...
Still Reeling I didn't think I would miss M. V. Moorhead's film reviews, but at least he was concise and interesting. Bring back Moorhead or practice some editing on the wordy bunch New Times now has banging the keys. Carter Youngman via Internet Lost in the Translation In her pathetic...
One night in March 1987, Mary and Manny Carbajal and several members of their family gathered around a kitchen table at their home in downtown Phoenix. It would be more than a year before their 19-year-old son Michael would become world famous, and his inspirational story had yet to be...
So you gotta ask yourself--here are two bands, both clones of the Boogie Knights, who are managed by the BK's firm, Perfect World, and use the same keyboard samples, play the same song selections (what's the fascination with "Copacabana" anyway?) and buy their wigs from the same thrift shops. So...
In Absolute Power, Clint Eastwood plays Luther Whitney, a master thief who burgles on little cat feet. He's as stealthy as the Pink Panther pilferer, though not nearly as amusing. Luther, you see, is presented to us as an artist. We first see him at the National Gallery dutifully copying...
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,...
Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh) is Prince of Denmark. After his father (Brian Blessed) dies, his uncle Claudius (Derek Jacobi) takes the throne and marries Hamlet's mother, Gertrude (Julie Christie). When the late king's ghost reveals he was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet must decide which course of action to take. Meanwhile, he...
Imagine a block of Soviet workers' housing plopped down in central Phoenix, then cloaked in shades of hot pink and aqua. Le Corbusier meets Miami Vice. Imagine four hulking cinder-block-and-glass buildings whose residents live in strict compliance with covenants, codes and restrictions dictating everything from window coverings to doormat placement...
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,...
In the post-Babe era, can you make a live-action movie about animals and not have them talk to each other? For me, this is the deep philosophical question raised by Disney's new 101 Dalmatians, a live-action remake of the studio's 1961 animated feature--in which, by the way, the animals did...
Phoenix resident Donald Campbell was fed up with neighborhood dogs using his front lawn as their personal rest room. First, he posted a sign asking passers-by to pick up after their pets. When that didn't do the trick, Campbell took more extreme measures. In February 1994, according to police reports,...
For most of us, getting ready for the holidays means whipping up a batch of Chex mix, hacking up a Hickory Farms beef log and hoping that this year's monthlong ordeal will pass as quickly and as painlessly as possible. But when it comes to Christmas, twin brothers Bob and...
Whoever whispered, "Build it, and they will come," obviously wasn't speaking to Andrea Zuhri-Adams. In 1993, Zuhri-Adams, an African American, was recruited by Phoenix city officials who wanted a minority-owned business in the ground floor of the city parking garage at 333 East Jefferson, just east of America West Arena...
In these pages some five months ago, you were introduced to the phenomenon of Rods. Unidentified Flying Rods, to be exact. Unexplainable, tubelike things perhaps hundreds of feet long of unknown origin that allegedly course through our skies so fast as to be barely perceptible to the human eye. But...
Rumor(s): The Gin Blossoms have broken up; the Gin Blossoms have decided to release one more album and then break up; the Gin Blossoms will never play in public again. True or false: Tough call. Several Tempe sources close to the band say consistently that the Gin Blossoms are together...
Che Bella Tuscan Grill & Bakery, Biltmore Fashion Park, 24th Street and Camelback, Phoenix, 956-5705. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to midnight. What comes to mind when you think about improving the Valley's quality of life? Reliable mass...
During the opening day of the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas, where Kim Fowley is still revered and everyone gets a backstage pass for a weekend, Randy Newman sat uncomfortably on a stage in the Austin Convention Center's ballroom. He was there ostensibly to promote...
If Pee-wee Herman ever participates in a bicycle rodeo on Mars, it's a cinch his entry won't hold a candle to the unidentified non-flying object that's been keeping Valley motorists guessing for the past several years. A souped-up cardboard cabin attached to a bicycle frame, the winged craft is hard...
thursday july 18 Kim Abeles: The work of this talented Californian gives new meaning to the term "environmental art." Best known for her "smog" series--which utilizes man's pollutants to comment on mankind's folly--Abeles is also adept at assemblage, drawing and welding, and her creations are generally knockouts whether they're bite-size...
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: "When the gods wish to punish us, they grant our prayers." For the past two seasons, I have been thumping a drum, decrying the decreased relevance of theatre to contemporary culture. Now, In Mixed Company has taken me at my word and is presenting a play...
Darlene and Jerry Span have suffered so, I am reluctant to write optimistically about them. I fear that if I mention the one uncontestably good thing that has happened to the Spans in the past few years, I will anger the gods of legal minutia, who might then rain dozens...
A recreational-drug user since the late Sixties, my friend Skippy is a man who likes his pills. So I wasn't exactly surprised when, grinning from ear to ear, he triumphantly whipped out a bottle of the prescription muscle relaxer Soma. What did surprise me was his explanation of how he...
