In a brief prologue, a pale young woman fixes her eyes on the black void that is the past: “I’m seeing him. He’s huge. The biggest man in the world.” Fade to black. The young woman awakens to find herself on a beach. Her name is Maria, and she vaguely…
Roald Dahl was one of those writers–Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) another–who seem to have kept a direct line open between adulthood and the childhood id. Dahl’s 1961 children’s book James and the Giant Peach was about exactly that–a boy who uses a giant peach as an airship…
Nick Broomfield’s BBC documentary Heidi Fleiss Hollywood Madam runs well over two hours. Think about that for a minute. Compare it to other documentaries about prominent contemporary women–it’s much longer than the Maya Lin movie, and only a hair shorter than the one about Leni Riefenstahl. And perhaps what’s most…
thursday april 18 Dinofest International: This saurian showcase includes dino skeletons and fossils from all seven continents. Highlights include numerous pieces from the “Great Dinosaurs of China” collections of the Beijing and Inner Mongolia museums of natural history; the remains of a duckbill from the Los Angeles County Museum; robotic…
world party EarthFest ’96: Valley Forward Association sponsors this free, hands-on environmental expo for kids of all ages, featuring interactive and educational exhibits illustrating the importance of conservation efforts and practical ways to implement them. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, April 19; and 11 a.m. to 4…
The most erotic image I have seen on the stages of Phoenix can be ogled at Playwright’s Workshop Theatre on Seventh Street. The time is the present; the place is a federal prison. The setting is a spare, clean prison cell illuminated by a single industrial lamp that hangs over…
If the uselessly titled new Richard Gere vehicle Primal Fear were a paperback novel bought in haste in an airport terminal, it would probably pass the time it takes to fly over the Midwest agreeably enough. Based on a William Diehl novel that has, no doubt, made that very trip…
thursday april 11 Dinofest International: Billed as “the biggest dinosaur event ever,” this saurian showcase includes dinosaur skeletons and fossils from all seven continents. Highlights include numerous pieces from the “Great Dinosaurs of China” collections of the Beijing and Inner Mongolia museums of natural history, including the largest touring dino…
the ice is right The Wizard of Oz on Ice: Dorothy and pals don skates in this chilly touring extravaganza, based on the L. Frank Baum fairy tale. Jeri Campbell stars as the Kansas farm girl, and Bobby McFerrin provides the speaking and singing voices for all of the principals…
According to artist Hans Haacke, all art becomes purely nostalgic after a period of ten years. Haacke’s own 1991 mixed-media sculpture “Collateral,” included in Phoenix Art Museum’s “Old Glory: The American Flag in Contemporary Art,” falls premature victim to this gloomy, but fairly accurate, pronouncement about the staying power of…
Inspector, I confess! I love stage mysteries and thrillers. From the time, as a youngster, I saw the film classic Witness for the Prosecution–based on Agatha Christie’s play–I’ve been guilty of harboring a secret thrill for the mechanical intricacies of a spine-tingling whodunit. Phoenix Theatre has mounted one of the…
Safely ensconced in its comfortable new home in a strip mall at 99th Avenue and Peoria Avenue, Theater Works is presenting Robert Bolt’s turgid, talky historical pageant A Man for All Seasons. In its new location, the theatre has painstakingly reproduced the exact layout of the bucolic barn it previously…
Ira Levin succinctly defined the stage thriller as “the one-set, five-character moneymaker.” That’s the basic design of Faithful, Paul Mazursky’s film of Chazz Palminteri’s play, adapted for the screen by and co-starring the author. Apart from a few expendable bit players, there are five characters and, except for a few…
At the end of Sgt. Bilko, there’s a gag title thanking the U.S. Army “for its total lack of cooperation” in the making of the film. Presumably, the Army felt it couldn’t very well officially sanction a movie in which the hero was a gleeful, unrepentantly corrupt master sergeant who…
hop to it The Bunny Brigade and Peter Rabbit: Great Arizona Puppet Theater presents final performances of the Easter-specific Brigade at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 4; 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Friday, April 5; 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, April 6; and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at the…
thursday april 4 Phoenix Firebirds: The AAA affiliate of baseball’s San Francisco Giants, led by new skipper and former Firebird infielder Ron Wotus, opens its 33rd Pacific Coast League season with a home stand against the Salt Lake Buzz. Games are scheduled at 7:05 p.m. Thursday, April 4; 7:05 p.m…
A Coen brothers movie wouldn’t be a Coen brothers movie if it didn’t take a snide view of its characters, and the oddball filmmaking team’s latest, Fargo, is no exception. The lads dearly love a protagonist they can humiliate, and the contempt they show for Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy)…
The intense need of so many adopted children to connect with their biological families can be puzzling to those of us not in their shoes. Reengaging with the people who gave you up as a baby has the potential to damage one’s link with the people who then took you…
hop to it Easter County Fair: Duncan’s Sunfresh Farms, 17203 West Indian School in Goodyear, hosts a celebration of the season from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 30; and the same hours Sunday, March 31. Highlights include an appearance by the Easter Bunny, an egg hunt, an Easter-themed…
thursday march 28 An Inspector Calls: Critic Harvey S.Karsten described Royal National Theatre’s touring production of J.B. Priestley’s thriller as “Mad Max meets Masterpiece Theatre.” The Tony Award winner, a noir-inspired mystery set in Edwardian England, centers on a snobbish British family and itsmembers’ indirect complicity in the suicide of…
Deposit all linear thinking at the shadowy portals of “Buried Secrets,” Bill Viola’s five-part, multimedia installation at ASU Art Museum at Nelson Fine Arts Center. That’s because this potent visual and auditory experience is consciously designed to be understood on a purely intuitive plane, a level on which just about…
When the two cast members in Actors Theatre of Phoenix’s production of David Mamet’s Oleanna start talking to each other in act one, it sounds forced. Away they chatter in the herky-jerky verbal rhythms for which Mamet is so celebrated, finishing each other’s sentences and not finishing their own, taking…
