If there is a normal career path for Academy Award-winning actresses, Geena Davis certainly isn't following it. Prior to being Oscarized in March for her performance in The Accidental Tourist as a dog trainer at the Meow Bow Animal Hospital who is in love with a reluctant travel writer, Davis'...
The long, lean black man takes a break from tinkering with a car beneath the South Phoenix sun. Drenched with sweat, he falls onto a tattered couch under a paloverde tree. "I remember sitting under a shade tree as a kid watching my dad fix a car," the man says,...
Special message to readers from Cap'n Dave: This is the second installment of my special guest-review program, by which I goof off for several weeks and have my friends do all the work, at least until the new serious restaurant reviewer punches in on March 14. This week it's Tom...
Prior to the Eighties, the desert dining scene might best be characterized by its cheap (but delectable) chimichanga chow and its pretty (but indigestible) resort restaurant ambiance. Even as late as 1979-1/2, high-tone Valley victualizing often meant the likes of generic Veal Oscar and canned vegetables, albeit served in beautiful...
During one of the few days he actually appeared for work at the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, James Abbott McNeill Whistler executed a small engraving of an island in the Santa Barbara Channel off the coast of California. Because he was Whistler, he could not resist adding some...
If the Guinness Book of World Records has a category for Shortest Radio Talk-Show Appearance, I'm a shoo-in to make the next edition. In my role as New Times/KTAR-AM radio film critic, I was all set to go on Michael Dixon's midday program to chat about the previous night's Oscar-doling...
City Sights 'n' Sounds, Phoenix's noontime nod to the muses in Patriots Square, is under siege. By Oscar the Grouch. The daily one-hour serving of live music is the only regular, cheap cultural alternative to dirty-movie houses within miles of downtown. But someone in that swarm of high-rises surrounding the...
When the Babbitts abandoned Arizona to pursue the White House, they bequeathed Evan Mecham and Rose Mofford to those of us left behind. Not content with this questionable legacy, the Babbitts have once again taken to the road, most recently to midwive the birth of democracy in the unlikely precincts...
"Ric Rankins did not die in vain," the speaker shouted last Sunday night. "His death has created a new spirit in this community." The crowd packed into the low-ceilinged meeting hall of the church on Broadway and 19th Street cheered. Seated in the front row were black political leaders state...
There should never have been a doubt. Those two Smitty's supermarket workers who allegedly strangled Ric Rankins last July deserve to stand trial for manslaughter. At first I was appalled by the mishandling of the case by County Attorney Richard Romley. His cynical excuse for avoiding the controversial case was...
They finally elected Bill Veeck to baseball's Hall of Fame. I don't pretend to know how that honor would sit with him, though. Even though he was an owner most of his years in the game, Veeck was always considered an iconoclast. While most owners have always thought a baseball...
Not all is running perfectly at the world's largest jazz festival. It's 2:30 a.m. in the Dutch concert hall in which the North Sea Jazz Festival is being held. Trumpeter Lester Bowie sits backstage, waiting to go on with his band Brass Fantasy. The situation threatens disaster for the jazzman...
Ethics evangelist Michael Josephson is trying to heal Arizona, a state made gimpy by corruption. Last week he spoke to a large roomful of attorneys. This week he speaks to the Arizona State Legislature, then the Arizona Press Club. He has cornered all the usual suspects, in other words. Josephson,...
Evelyn Grgurich remembers the first time the lineup for this year's Sedona Jazz on the Rocks festival was discussed. "I brought up Pat Metheny's name a few times," she recalls, referring to the experimental jazz guitarist. A seven-year member of the Jazz on the Rocks board, Grgurich also served a...
Maryvale movie maven Jack Hardy has problems. Reel problems. Luckily, his family understands. "My wife is very supportive of this," says Hardy as he gingerly picks his way through the maze of film cans, videocassettes, editing tables and movie-history books that have transformed his west Phoenix home into the equivalent...
They sit there in growing awe. The silence of the darkened theatre is broken frequently by applause. It is billed simply as "A Tribute to Jodie Foster." They do this for one film legend every year here at the Telluride Film Festival. Often it is for some dead actor from...
Bssghetti, 1656 South Alma School, Mesa, 820-8080. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 4:30 to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m. Uh-oh. It's Christmas-vacation time. Time for lots of family togetherness. Lots and lots of...
Miro's, 4025 East Chandler Boulevard, Phoenix, 759-6088. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Friday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, 5:30 to 11 p.m. Out in the south Valley, beyond Ahwatukee and north of the Gila River Indian Reservation, the desert is particularly harsh...
Royal Barge, 8220 North Hayden, Scottsdale, 443-1953. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m. Remember Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve? She won an Oscar depicting a woman with multiple...
It's tough to review restaurants that represent everything you hate: the type of place that you, as a private citizen, would never frequent in a million years unless maybe some of the girls at work took you out as a surprise for your birthday, or you were shopping in a...
Mexican Temptation: It was Oscar Wilde who said that he could resist everything except temptation. Me, too. That's why I find myself constantly drawn to the restaurants at the beautiful Scottsdale Princess Resort. It's impossible to eat here and not have a good time. Foodies know that the featured dining...
Zona Rosa, Crown Sterling Suites, 2630 East Camelback, Phoenix, 954-9258. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. The line separating highbrow from lowbrow is a lot less rigid than we think. Take Shakespeare. In Elizabethan England and...
