Talk Cinema – the sneak-peek film series at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts – returns this Tuesday at 7 p.m. with (spoiler alert!) quirky Italian comedy The Salt of Life. Started by renowned film critic Harlan Jacobson, the Talk Cinema series screens award-winning indie and foreign films before their theatrical…
New footage, new characters, and new drama unfolds in the latest preview for The Hunger Games, set to hit theaters on March 23. The new trailer (which will run during this weekend’s Super Bowl) clocks in at one minute, zero explosions, about 10 sentences, and plenty of reasons for YA…
In our status-updated, YouTubed, and retweeted age of self-documentation, does the “faux-found-footage” genre — popularized by The Blair Witch Project, vulgarized by the Paranormal Activity franchise and cash-grabbing imitators — add commentary to the zeitgeist or merely more noise? And anyway, is there really anything left to say about a…
A Separation — the fifth feature by Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi — is an urgently shot courtroom drama designed to put you in the jury box. Dispensing with preliminaries, it opens at a judicial hearing where, both facing the camera that stands in for the judge, a quarrelsome husband and…
Vh1’s latest reality endeavor, Baseball Wives, is based in (where else?) spring training hotspot Scottsdale. The catty crew includes Anna Benson, Erika Monroe Williams, Chantel Kendall, Tanya Grace, Brooke Villone, and Jordana Lenz. The six women have (or have had) romances with MLB players, and, as it’s “reality” telly, they…
Vh1’s latest reality endeavor, Baseball Wives, is based in (where else?) spring training hotspot Scottsdale. The catty crew includes Anna Benson, Erika Monroe Williams, Chantel Kendall, Tanya Grace, Brooke Villone (yes, the bikini’d lady to the left), and Jordana Lenz. The six women have (or have had) romances with MLB…
For a film titled We Need to Talk About Kevin, there isn’t much talking, and certainly not enough about Kevin. Instead, the story is told largely through the eyes of star Tilda Swinton – whose recent Oscar snub is considered one of this year’s top mistakes by an increasingly distrusted Academy…
In Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, Tilda Swinton lives out an urban bohemian’s worst nightmare. Forced to give up her independence (and downtown loft) when a reckless night with schlubby photographer flame Franklin (John C. Reilly) results in accidental pregnancy, free-spirit travel writer Eva becomes an unhappy…
The hero of the red-herring heist flick Man on a Ledge draws two reactions from the Manhattan throng beneath his 21st-floor perch on a midtown hotel. The first, of course, is the predictable “just get it over with” impatience of New Yorkers impeded by police barricades. The second is unlikely…
Halfway through last year’s rough-and-tumble thriller Unknown, assassins come calling for a man who’s suffering from amnesia (Liam Neeson). All of a sudden, he hammers down on his pursuer with a lead pipe, digs a thumb into an eye socket, and punches through targets like a heavyweight. He won’t learn…
It’s potentially dangerous to look at the lineup of the Sundance Film Festival, which ended Sunday, as a reflection of the character of contemporary indie film, the collective American consciousness, or, well, anything. But there’s no question that the 2012 edition of the festival was stuffed with films in some…
The fourth season of Logo darling RuPaul’s Drag Race hits television screens this Monday, January 30, promising more drama, more glamour, and (we hope) even more hot glue. This season brings a whole new line-up of guest judges, from Kelly Osbourne to Jennifer Love Hewitt to Modern Family’s Mitchell, plus the biggest…
Our shiny, golden man is back for the 2012 Academy Awards. Nominees for this year’s awards were announced this morning, with a few surprises. We’ve listed them below, and we’re plotting award-time strategy (and perhaps a drinking game). So grab the popcorn and catch up on these flicks before February 26…
Vh1’s latest reality endeavor, Baseball Wives, is based in (where else?) spring training hotspot Scottsdale. The catty crew includes Anna Benson, Erika Monroe Williams, Chantel Kendall, Tanya Grace, Brooke Villone, and Jordana Lenz. The six women have (or have had) romances with MLB players, and, as it’s “reality” telly, they…
Vh1’s latest reality endeavor, Baseball Wives, is based in (where else?) spring training hotspot Scottsdale. The show features Anna Benson, Erika Monroe Williams, Chantel Kendall, Tanya Grace, Brooke Villone, and Jordana Lenz. The vaguely sporty premise? Six women with romantic ties to pro baseballers pick fights, form catty alliances, throw…
Well-honed powers of observation are an absolute must for any detective. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew this, as demonstrated by the sleuthing skills of his greatest creation Sherlock Holmes. Millionaire heiress Frances Glessner Lee also believed criminal investigators should have a similarly keen eye, which is why she helped revolutionize…
Close to Hollywood, with a desert landscape and shining city as adaptable to “New Mexico” as “Saudi Arabia” (just ignore that non-native cactus in the corner), the Phoenix metropolitan area has a rich history of film production. Our time in the spotlight has been bright — from 1960’s Psycho, when Janet…
Director Stephen Daldry has never met a Big Theme he didn’t like: After 2002’s The Hours, a lugubrious women’s-problem picture touching on AIDS and assisted suicide, he went to Auschwitz with 2008’s The Reader. Following two such high-toned literary adaptations with such hefty subject matter, Daldry’s logical next stop is…
There’s a point in Haywire when the film’s protagonist, ex-Marine Mallory Kane (Gina Carano), gone rogue from her job as hired muscle for a private government subcontractor, takes a fall while scaling down a drainpipe and hits the ground with a crunch that knocks the wind out of you. It’s…
Like us, you may be in mourning for the closing of The Royale in Mesa after only six months, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still a number of local venues for viewing independent and art-house films at decent prices (like, say, free). Sure, you’ll sometimes have to compromise on seating…
It’s 1992 at the start of In the Land of Blood and Honey, and Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) and Danijel (Goran Kostic) are about to hook up at Bosnian nightclub when they’re interrupted by a bomb blast. A few months later, Ajla is one of dozens of women rounded up and…
The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher as victimized woman In the first scene of The Iron Lady, which re-teams director Phyllida Lloyd with her Mamma Mia! star Meryl Streep, 80-something Margaret Thatcher is presented as a little old lady unfit for the fast-moving world outside her hermetic London townhouse. The bulk…
