There once was a man, and he called himself Seuss Who wrote the best children’s books ever produced. With drawings elaborate, and tales subtly moral Of his greatness, not even this critic would quarrel. Alas, he’s now dead, and so all is not groovy, For someone said, “I know! Let’s…
If the concept of dubious celebrity Ben Affleck romping in a water park with cinematic darling Gwyneth Paltrow and two adorable moppets does not inspire in you spasms of dizziness and nausea, then you may find plenty to tolerate in Bounce, the new romantic dramedy from writer/director Don Roos. This…
To the Onlie Begetter of this sonnet Mr. W.S., all happinesse (and forgivenesse) and that eternitie promised. Shall I compare thee to just any show? Thou art more funny and lo, more stirring: Rude jokes do fall from above and below, And songs do float on the air as they…
At this writing, Bob Somerby is on the edge of his seat. He still isn’t sure whether he was college roommates with a historical footnote or with the next president of the United States. “Do I know Franklin Roosevelt?” Somerby wonders aloud, by phone from his home in Baltimore. “Or…
The stark simplicity of A Time for Drunken Horses, one of the few films that has slipped out of postrevolutionary Iran to the West, does nothing to obscure its emotional power or the complexity of the geopolitical issues underlying it.Filmed on location in wintry Kurdistan, it is the heartbreaking story…
Little Nicky will redefine the phrase “worst movie ever,” because it might actually be the worst movie ever. Never again will one be able to so casually sling around that phrase about, say, anything produced by Jerry Bruckheimer or anything starring Richard Grieco or Robert Davi or Rodney Dangerfield (who,…
Fascinating and engrossing on every conceivable level, this beautifully constructed feature-length documentary opens with the mournful sound of a train, and images of toys and books sitting untouched in what was once a child’s bedroom. As the credit sequence ends, an elderly woman addresses an unseen interviewer, recalling the day…
Deception. Duplicity. Danger. By the end of Bale Folclorico da Bahia’s show at the Orpheum Theatre Friday night, you will have experienced all that, and probably danced along with it. Lest the raucous rhythms and superb athletics of the dancers make you forget, Brazilian dance disciplines like capoeira and maculele…
Sixty years to the month after it first opened, and after more than a year dark, Tempe’s Valley Art Theatre reopens this week. The venue, newly renovated by Harkins Theatres, reintroduces itself to the community with a series of celebratory events and schmoozes, after which, Dan Harkins promises, it will…
We’ve come to know an Annie Leibovitz photograph not by any particular style or photographic technique but by the combination of two relatively simple characteristics — if the photo is of a celebrity and said celebrity is doing something unusual or rather un-celebrity-like, then it must have come from the…
Besides the obvious mind alteration and outright brainwash inflicted upon all the video game-obsessed minions who populate the elementary schools and high schools across our country, a less virulent but sad phenomenon awaits them in adulthood. It has nothing to do with the usual criticisms of overhyped sex and violence…
Crumbs From the Table of Joy is far more insightful and entertaining than the archetypal African-American history play. I expected a wistful, nostalgic comedy, but Lynn Nottage’s rarely sentimental story — which Arizona Theatre Company opened at the Herberger last week — is a complex memory play that overcomes its…
Refreshingly, the biggest wonder about the new Arnold Schwarzenegger ride is not that human cloning has become a reality, or that the America of the future (“sooner than you think,” as an opening caption ominously suggests) very closely resembles present-day Vancouver, Canada. It’s not even that technological advances appear to…
No one likes to be seen as the roadblock to a revolution. The unfortunate soul–or the dumb bastard–who chooses to impede progress is likely to be mowed down by those charging toward tomorrow. He will become a thing to be wiped off the shoes of those who march, march, march…
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. — Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill”Dylan Thomas knew the harsh truth that childhood is nothing but a myth. No matter how much we…
It’s 1942, the final year of John Barrymore’s life, and we’ve joined the once-great actor in a tiny playhouse, where he’s come to recapture his former glory. Instead, he delivers a sodden recitation of his days as the clown prince of Broadway’s Royal Family, recalling many of his famous friends…
After kicking off with a cheerily conventional, highly entertaining Barber of Seville, Arizona Opera kicks its season into high gear with a superb, much less conventional staging of Carmen. Maybe because of its lurid tabloid plot, Bizet’s masterpiece, regarded as scandalous when it premièred just months before the composer’s death…
The soon-to-be-talked-about sensations in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream include three or four flashing, near-subliminal montages that combine an eye’s iris and dilating pupil; an extreme close-up of heroin cooking in a teaspoon, and a sucking hypodermic needle; a surpassingly frightening sequence in which Ellen Burstyn, in the midst…
November may mean Thanksgiving to most of you, but in the film biz it means a rush of “serious” films trying to gouge an impression into the short memories of Oscar voters. This shouldn’t be a bad thing, but since the relationship between “Oscar” and “actual interesting filmmaking” is nearly…
Early in Spanish director Carlos Saura’s stunning new film, the 82-year-old protagonist, the great 19th-century painter Francisco de Goya, awakens from a disturbing dream and rises to see an apparition of his lost love, the Duchess of Alba. Following her down a surrealistically white hallway, he suddenly finds himself outdoors…
The wonder of Solas, the latest in a growing list of remarkable Spanish films that have recently made their way to the U.S. (Butterfly and Goya in Bordeaux are also well worth seeing), is a courtly old gentleman referred to simply as “Neighbor.” Played to absolute perfection by Carlos Álvarez-Novoa,…
It’s a complicated — but worthwhile — weekend at the Tempe Improv. First of all, it’s truly improvisational: Sketch comedian Wayne Brady appears Thursday, November 9; Friday, November 10; and Sunday, November 12, at the Tempe Improv Comedy Theater.Brady has emerged as the most acclaimed of the performers on ABC’s…
