Auctiontainment Comes to Phoenix

Photo by Cyndi Coon​With the ongoing popularity of Antiques Road Show, Pawn Stars and American Pickers, we knew the next guilty pleasure, trash-or-treasure show to come was a reality TV auction show. TLC knew too. The cable channel has a new show, Auctioneer$, in their line up this fall. But…

Kings of Pastry Is the Cream Puff of Docs

Recording a three-day competition in Lyon, France, in which sugar is heated, stretched, and blown into delicate, rococo shapes, Kings of Pastry has none of the shame-and-humiliation rituals of reality TV cook-offs like Top Chef, no dishy Padma Lakshmi to coolly eliminate hopefuls. Though Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s food-fetishizing…

Campus MovieFest at Arizona State University

One week, five minutes. Those are the rules in a nutshell for the Campus MovieFest, where ASU students are invited to borrow free equipment for one week courtesy of the fest, churn out a five minute film, then submit their mini-vision for a chance to win a slice of $400,000…

Five Creepy Old People in Films

Wikimedia CommonsOld people may look harmless, but beware…​Although elderly people in films are usually portrayed as benign and lovable, sometimes an old character comes along that’s way too creepy, like the Reverend Henry Kane in Poltergeist II, the decaying lady in the bath tub from The Shining, and the terrible…

An Evening with Halston at Phoenix Art Museum

​Amazing fashion, sexy celebrities, hard partying, drugs, a downward spiral — fashion designer, Halston’s life was filled with the elements good stories are made of.This weekend, the Phoenix Art Museum’s Arizona Costume Institute Nouveau Division is presenting a one-time showing of the documentary of Halston’s life, Ultrasuede: In Search of…

I’m Still Here: Joaquin Phoenix Implodes to Prove a Point to Hollywood

I’m Still Here — “that Joaquin Phoenix movie” — capitalizes on an anxiety that’s very of-the-moment, uniting pop cultural phenomena as seemingly disparate as the too-stupid/good-to-be-true Jersey Shore characters, James Franco’s baffling side careers as a professional student and soap opera stud, and pretty much every thing having to do…

Lebanon Takes You Inside an Israeli Tank and the Reality of War

Lebanon, written and directed by Samuel Maoz, is not just the year’s most impressive first feature but also the strongest new movie of any kind I’ve seen in 2010. Actually, Lebanon — which won the Golden Lion at Venice, after being rejected by Berlin and Cannes — hardly seems like…

Steve Weiss Named FilmBar’s Programmer

Steve Weiss, head honcho of No Festival Required, has been named film programmer of the soon-to-be-launched FilmBar. Weiss brings some pretty good microcinema experience to the indie venue that plans to screen new, classic, and international flicks when it opens in late November. In 2002, after Jeff Cochran pulled the…

Rebuilding Hope Documentary DVD Available Online

Rebuilding Hope, a documentary that follows three men who fled civil war-torn Sudan and into the United States as children, then return to their homeland as adults, is available for purchase online following a local screening in Phoenix. Gabriel Bol Deng, Koor Garang and Garang Mayuol, the subjects of the…

The Tillman Story: A Discussion with Director Amir Bar-Lev

The Tillman Story, director Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary about Pat Tillman’s family’s search for the truth about his death, opens in theaters nationwide today. We recently caught up with Bar-Lev to ask a few questions about the film. What compelled you to make The Tillman Story? [Tillman’s death] was a story…

The Room: Four Major Symbols in Tommy Wiseau’s Cult Classic Comedy

Independent filmmaker Tommy Wiseau is as enigmatic as his movies. Several times during our 20-minute phone interview, he says, “I don’t like to talk about myself.” But one thing Wiseau will discuss at length is his movie The Room, which screens at MADCAP Theaters Friday and Saturday, September 3 and…

The Tillman Story Sets the Record Straight

Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals safety who enlisted in the Army Rangers eight months after September 11, read Emerson, Chomsky, and, though an atheist, the Bible. Resembling a beefier Seann William Scott, he shunned cell phones, cars, and professional-athlete megalomania. A fiercely private (and principled) person, his death in Afghanistan…

The American: Anton Corbijn Turns the Tried-and-True Thriller Inward

Sometimes you feel bad for movie marketers, tasked with connecting any given film to as large an audience as possible. Take, for example, The American. Judging by the film’s trailers and advertisements, it’s a fast-paced Euro-stylish thriller starring George Clooney as a dashing, conflicted hero. Yet it quickly becomes apparent,…