Beneath the hazy, mystifying layers of Vanilla Sky lies a remarkable Tom Cruise performance — one that, to a large extent, takes place beneath a makeup artist’s piled-on scars and a costumer’s blank “prosthetic” mask. As David Aames, hipster publisher of Maxim-like magazines, Cruise plays a lothario so vain he…
It took five men to concoct the hackneyed plot and conceive the brainless jokes that constitute Not Another Teen Movie, meaning there are five men in Los Angeles right now still trying to wash that stink off their soft, idle hands. Five men — five men, the very thought boggles…
The curiosity of the human animal is such that, put face-to-face with an artist and a work of art, we are tempted to pluck at each thread that joins the two, searching for the “truth” of the work, and the artist. While the work cannot, on some elemental level, be…
The look on the face of Homer “The Rock” Moore as he pounds his fists and elbows in vicious combinations against a trainer’s gloves is pure intensity, wide-eyed and emotionless, in stark contrast to the homicidal punishment his 205-pound frame is unleashing. Moore is at Brausa Academy, preparing for his…
“Mr. Human Rights,” they once called him, and though his was never the most famous name on the bill–that was Bono or Bruce Springsteen, Sting or Peter Gabriel–as the organizer of the Conspiracy of Hope concerts in 1986 and the Human Rights Now! world tour two years later, Jack Healey…
My friend Paul is, among other things, a devoted Titanic enthusiast. While other little boys were playing kickball, Paul was playing “Capsize,” a game he’d invented about being trapped on a sinking luxury liner. As a teen, he spent his milk money on membership in the Titanic Historical Society; today,…
Some weeks my job is less about offering opinions about theater than it is about dodging Neil Simon comedies. This week I failed to completely avoid my least favorite playwright, because the only shows opening here last Friday were both written by Simon. I considered attending Stagebrush Theatre’s production of…
The lights go down, and the puzzlement begins. Ensemble cast of superstars? Check. Loose remake of amusing curiosity? Check. Built-in, prefab sense of cool? Check. A little something for wistful fans of Dino and Sammy? Check. So . . . wait a minute. Is this The Cannonball Run Redux?With his…
Of all the Japanese-made animated films to get a theatrical release in the United States in recent years, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is by far the most cinematic. It has a particular penchant for scenes that involve a major character being utterly dwarfed by some kind of fantastical building or…
The idea behind The Monkey Show Movie Theater — a place “to watch a really strange movie with a small and intimate audience” — is not a new one. But unless one considers X-rated theaters (where “intimate” is understood much differently), it is one that has been largely sidelined in…
Polish up your “La Bamba.” For the 10th year in a row, some of the top mariachi groups in the country are coming to Phoenix to help ring in the holiday season.The Christmas Mariachi Festival is “an explosion of music and color and pageantry,” reports Lorenzo Lucas, production manager for…
In 1978, I received an F on a high school English composition in which I wrote that the characters in the film Rebel Without a Cause were all losers. John, I wrote, was a babyish invert, too stupid to hide his crush on Jim, a loser whose idea of fun…
Though Behind Enemy Lines, set in Bosnia, was originally due for release next year, already it feels antiquated; that conflict is already a distant memory, a ghost lost in the shadow of the war on terrorism. The film tested so well that 20th Century Fox pushed up its release date,…
This is the true story of seven people (Tommy! Annie! Ashley! Maria! Griffin! Carpo! And Benjamin!) picked to live in a city and have their lives changed. Find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start being real. The Real World: Sidewalks of New York.If you came across…
Modern-day “high fashion” is presented with all the trimmings — modeled by Amazons in stilettos, sent down the catwalk to a throbbing beat. It’s certainly glamorous, but it’s still ready-to-wear, available off the rack to anyone with a titanium card. While the term haute couture is often used interchangeably with…
Natalie Merchant — blues singer? Maybe it’s a little premature for that kind of label, but for those who remember Merchant solely as the socially conscious lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs, her latest project, Motherland, might be a bit of a surprise. For the first time on record, she tries…
It is difficult to imagine a more timely film than Focus; certainly, its message about intolerance resonates in a post-September 11 world in ways the filmmakers never anticipated. Adapted from Arthur Miller’s little-known 1945 novel of the same title, Focus looks at what happens to a society when basically decent…
David Grisman and Jerry Garcia met as young folk-roots fans-cum-musicians attending a Bill Monroe concert in 1964. Garcia, as you may have heard, went on to form the Grateful Dead; when the Dead began to incorporate more country elements into their music, they used mandolin ace Grisman memorably on their…
Are you ready to testify?Even if you aren’t, the Joyous Voices Band and Choir are, and by the end of Oh Holy Night: A Gospel Christmas, chances are they’ll have you up on your feet, clapping and singing along to “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” That’s just what happens…
They’re tied for second in the toughest division in the country. Their rushing game plays out on the field like a fixed-bayonet charge. And their uniforms are flat-out bitchin’. But of all the immediate and inherently cool things that the Arizona Caliente have going for them, undoubtedly the coolest is…
Only a couple of months ago, it looked as though Donald Miller had a publishing home run on his hands–a thoughtful, exhilarating, inclusive book about World War II scheduled to hit stores just as Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Band of Brothers was finishing its critically lauded run on HBO…
Whenever folks gripe about the dreary state of theater in our town — which happens as often as you’d imagine — I always point out that stage legends live and work here every day. I’m especially boastful about the fact that theater luminary Marshall Mason teaches at the local university,…
