Regarding last week’s announcement that Meteorite ALH84001 may have been crawling with Martian germs: What’s the big deal? Science may consider this the first sign of Martian life, but we moviegoers have always known that Mars was a jumpin’ place, teeming with everything from snarling monsters to Ruritanian civilizations of…
A perky little armadillo bustles around under the titles of Ron Shelton’s Tin Cup, snout out, tail high. After a while, it becomes clear that this creature is supposed to represent Kevin Costner’s character, Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy. Of the two, it’s the armadillo who’d have grounds to take offense…
at the concert Borders Kazoo Band: Borders Books & Music at Biltmore Fashion Park, 24th Street and Camelback, Suite 200, supplies the highly hummable instruments; kids provide the lung and leg power in a musical march through the facility. The parade steps off at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, August 17. Admission…
thursday august 15 Continental Indoor Soccer League All-Star Game: Phoenix and its on-hiatus CISL franchise, the Arizona Sandsharks, are hosts of this year’s bash, the second annual. Tatu, Sandshark Donny Gaillard, Dale Ervine and other league stars are scheduled to take the field at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, August 15, at…
In Maybe . . . Maybe Not, a character mentions that he’s going to a Men’s Movement discussion group. “Oh, that’s so ’70s,” says another, and while the first guy concurs, he observes that such things are coming back into vogue. Apparently, a number of other things from the ’70s…
With the exception of Mansfield Park and a few minor or unfinished works, all of Jane Austen’s fiction has been adapted either for movies or for television within the past two years or so. Though almost two centuries have passed since she’s written anything new, Austen’s novel-to-film ratio is right…
thursday august 8 Jimmy Eat World: And the world–or, at least, our little corner of it–apparently likes the taste of Jimmy. “Flying off the shelves” may be an exaggeration regarding the status of the Valley alterna-pop band’s major-label debut, Static Prevails (Capitol), but “moving briskly” seems fair; see the story…
boney voyage “Weinerville Live”: Marc Weiner, creator and host of Nickelodeon’s half-human/half-puppet show, has taken his absurdist invention on the road. Weiner and many of his creations–including Boney the Dinosaur, Dottie the Mayor and tough-guy Socko–make a pit stop at Celebrity Theatre, 440 North 32nd Street, on Saturday, August 10…
Who saw Old Yeller? Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? Nobody cried when Old Yeller got shot? I’m sure! I cried my eyes out . . . –Bill Murray, Stripes The title canine of Disney’s Old Yeller saves young Tommy Kirk from wild pigs, and catches…
“Breathtaking” is one of the most overworked words in the critical lexicon, but make no mistake–the Jackie Chan vehicle Supercop is breathtaking. A dubbed and very slightly reedited version of a film I saw three years ago under the title Supercop (Police Story 3), this light-footed action comedy from Hong…
Cape Fear–De Niro poisons pooch Cujo–St. Bernard catches rabies, terrorizes people, dies gruesomely Dances With Wolves–Dog killed by evil Pawnee; wolf Two Socks killed by evil white soldiers Desperate Living–Dog run over by lesbians on crime spree Eye for an Eye–Dog doused with hot coffee by Kiefer Sutherland A Fish…
safety first National Night Out 1996: Many Valley cities and neighborhoods will join the 13th annual nationwide commemoration of crime-busting and self-defense, which teaches kids and their families how to protect their property and their persons. The biggest local event is slated for 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, August 6,…
thursday august 1 The Grapes of Wrath: Frank Galati won a Tony Award for his adaptation of John Steinbeck’s landmark novel about the Joad family’s flight from the Dust Bowl’s devastation to the broken promise of golden California, land of milk, honey and barbarism. The Phoenix-based Actors Group presents Galati’s…
Movies about junkies certainly don’t exact the same toll from their audiences that actual junkies do from the people who care about them, but their techniques are often the same. Junkies can frequently be charming; so can junkie movies. Junkies elicit one’s pity, sometimes calculatingly; so do junkie movies. Junkies…
Farce often operates best with the sword of horror hanging over its head, and horror can chill more deeply when spiked generously with humor. Martin and Lewis and Hope and Crosby and the Dead End Kids all braved haunted houses; half of the monsters on the Universal lot played straight…
cold comfort Downtown Cooldown: The City of Tempe hosts this way-cool extravaganza, featuring a fresh fall of July snow, a parade starring Otto the Talking Police Car, interactive games, train rides, entertainment and more. It’s slated for 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, July 27, centered on the intersection of Sixth…
thursday july 25 Smokin’ Grooves Tour 1996: Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, comprising Rita and Bob Marley’s kids Ziggy, Sharon, Cedella and Stephen, are first among equals on this fine bill, produced by Dan Aykroyd’s House of Blues, the same entity responsible for the upcoming House of Blues Tour…
With the exception, maybe, of Oliver Stone, no current American director is as adept at staging battle scenes as Edward Zwick–the engagements in his Glory had a speed and terror that could make you gasp. Battle scenes also figure importantly in Zwick’s new film, Courage Under Fire, the first major…
John Sayles rushes in where other straight white males fear to tread. He’s written screenplays set everywhere from Secaucus to Harlem to Ireland to Depression-era West Virginia to Louisiana to, with the current Lone Star, a border town in Texas. And that’s just in his pet projects–his hackwork for other…
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…
slime wave Mighty Mud Mania XXI: The 1996 edition of this detergent-challenging festival is slated for 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, July 19, at Chaparral Park, 5401 North Hayden in Scottsdale; registration precedes at 8. The main event is the “Original Mud Obstacle Course,” in which children ages 7…
If you love to be enraged by art like Phoenix Art Museum’s recent exhibit about the American flag or the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, you really should head over to Mercury Theater in Mesa to catch the granddaddy of all in-your-face concupiscence, Aristophanes’ ribald comedy Lysistrata. In this play, the…
