The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus takes itself seriously when it claims to delight young and old alike — so seriously, in fact, that it has taken the precaution of registering several hallmark phrases, including “Children of All Ages.” Example: Children of All Ages® will thrill to see…
The current release of French director Nicole Garcia’s Place Vendôme — which was nominated for 11 César Awards when it debuted in France three years ago — is yet another sign that the drop-off in French imports that has plagued U.S. screens in recent years is reversing: This is roughly…
In a year inundated with massive movies, it’s a pleasant surprise to note that a truly spectacular adventure has arrived in the form of a Disney cartoon called Atlantis: The Lost Empire.Gushing aside, let us now consider the Atlanteans, the mythic race whom co-directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (Beauty…
It happens every year about this time. Having waited several months, we, the moviegoing public (a good proportion of us, anyway), get all psyched up for the big summer “event” movies. High concepts! Larger-than-life heroes! Great special effects! We go in, and more often than not many of us come…
Brian Setzer knows how to swim against the musical tide. Back in the 1980s, during the early days of the video revolution, he fronted the rockabilly revival band the Stray Cats, a stripped-down trio consisting of three greasy guys playing acoustic standup bass, a minimal drum kit and Setzer’s burning…
For the next five days, Richard Lewis will seldom leave his North Dallas hotel room, hidden away at the far end of the top floor with a view of overpasses, office buildings and distant dark clouds. He will venture out only to visit a couple of radio and television stations,…
Audiences for STOMP, the dance and percussion spectacle that swept the globe in the 1990s, range in age from toddler to octogenarian.It’s no accident these hooligans of dance have such broad appeal. Before STOMP, there was stomp from A to Z: Appalachian Stomp, Kansas City Stomp, Louis Armstrong’s Mahogany Hall…
“There are probably three internationally famous novelists who lived in Arizona for long periods of time: Zane Grey, Edward Abbey and Glendon Swarthout.”In case the international fame of the last of those three scribes — rattled off by his son, Miles Hood Swarthout — has bypassed you, here’s the skinny…
At this moment, Baz Luhrmann, control freak and self-proclaimed ringleader of conspirators “who conspire to something greater than ourselves,” is not in control at all. The cameraman trailing behind him, like a faithful puppy awaiting treats, does not work for the director; rather, he is in the employ of the…
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Apparently, it’s high-profile art collectors Jacques and Natasha Gelman, judging from all the glitzy portraits commissioned from famous Mexican artists that now grace the walls of the Phoenix Art Museum as part of “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Twentieth-Century…
I’ve wanted to see a worthwhile production of Once on This Island for more than a decade. I’ve long suspected that Stephen Flaherty’s and Lynn Ahrens’ musicalized Little Mermaid had great potential, that its folksy tale and melodic score could be elevated by the right cast and conductor. But now…
When he was in his 30s, Ivan Reitman made comedies like a young man. His early movies, among them Stripes and Meatballs and Ghostbusters, were messy, cocky, charming, daffy and restless; they did anything for a laugh, even if that meant dousing John Candy in mud or Bill Murray in…
Lakeboat is a film adaptation of one of David Mamet’s earliest plays. It’s set on one of the title vessels, the broad, flat-bottomed freighters that traverse the Great Lakes, and the characters are the tough-talking crewmen. But it’s not a sailing adventure. It’s the opposite of a sailing adventure.There’s no…
How’s this for a Hollywood pitch:”Y’see, Harry, there’s this Roman general — right, like in Gladiator, exactly — and he comes back from a war against the Goths, with . . . what? No, Harry, not the teenage kids who dress in black, the ancient tribe. Right, those Goths, ya…
Typically, communities fail to take note of their artists until they go out and make it in the bigger world. Nonetheless, two who got started here in the Valley, Laurie Eisenhower and Billbob Brown, graciously come home to set dances on local troupes. This expands both the repertory and the…
Tamra Davis is bound by contract not to discuss the film that, at this very moment, she’s editing for release next year. “I’m officially not supposed to do any press for it,” the director says sheepishly, so she offers a few off-the-record comments about the movie, a road-trip comedy-drama starring…
No birthday party in this town seems to be complete without the tradition of breaking a piñata. And why should it? After all, nothing says “Happy Birthday” better than taking a giant wooden stick and beating the complete crap out of, say, a life-size Barbie or a smiling yellow Picachu…
Opening-night performances by small theater companies usually play to half-empty houses — except, apparently, for shows with the phrase “sexual perversity” in their titles. Sexual Perversity in Chicago’s first night was a sellout for Nearly Naked Theatre Company, a fact that so pleased the show’s director that he photographed his…
Remember glee? Perhaps not, given our penchant in recent times to chuck giddy hearts aside in favor of being stupid, obnoxious and mean. But hey, it’s all right, because the fizzy, caffeinated beverage known as Baz Luhrmann seeks to re-create this elusive emotion for all of us, in the form…
Pearl Harbor isn’t really a movie at all, but a highlight reel prepared for a Jerry Bruckheimer career retrospective. The film is as impressive and as empty as any the producer has ever made, most of which seem to have been cut and pasted into it. There’s Top Gun: Two…
Time and Tide — the latest action picture from producer/director Tsui Hark, one of the world’s great entertainers — is a compendium of many of the best (and a few of the worst) traits of Hong Kong action cinema. It’s relentlessly visceral, making you feel as if you’ve been shot…
The wave of nostalgia for ’70s culture that’s overtaken us in the last few years has significantly rebuilt disco’s reputation. Those of us who wish that it would do the same for that decade’s slick soul music are the target audience for the ’70s Soul Jam, an extravaganza of a…
