It was a Sinatra crowd that took their seats last Friday night at Phoenix Theatre for a second-week performance of My Way, a tribute to the Chairman of the Board that’s been doing boffo box office. The program crams 56 Frank Sinatra songs into a handsomely produced, gracefully entertaining two-hour…
Before the opening credits of All About the Benjamins have rolled, we’ve seen Ice Cube clothesline a girl in a bikini and repeatedly zap a redneck in the testicles even after he’s been subdued. Not half an hour later, Cube’s calling his Middle Eastern boss “rag-top son of a bitch”…
If they teach the work of Todd Solondz someday, assuming he’s not already in the curriculum somewhere, the lectures are bound to be rather short. To grasp the material without actually attending, just bone up on a little bargain-basement Freud, a whiff of primal therapy and a sprinkle of Jerry…
So it’s not exactly the Kentucky Derby — hell, it’s not even the dog track — but bets are on that the ostrich races, a featured event at the 14th annual Chandler Ostrich Festival, are bound to amuse. “The races are definitely the festival’s biggest highlight,” says Craig Kimmel of…
Most Valley homes lack basements, so it would seem that the name of Phoenix’s newest alternative theater group, which performs in gallery spaces, is playing on the term “underground.” But Theater In My Basement, the brain child of local playwright Chris Danowski, really did begin down in the cellar. Danowski…
“Are we gonna play chicken here, Robert? Who’s gonna go first?” That’s Chris Moore talking, from the other end of a cell phone–the preferred means of communication for the Hollywood producer too afraid of standing still. Moore–a producer of Good Will Hunting and the American Pie films, partner with Ben…
For an industry notorious for its test screenings, focus groups and obsession with what will play best in the heartland, the movie business occasionally and spectacularly drops the ball with respect to its mainstream entertainment. Last year, someone decided what the public most wanted to see was America’s Sweethearts, a…
What started eight years ago as a small, privately run music festival has become a big draw for Buckeye, almost entirely through word of mouth. But the secret to the success of the Buckeye Bluegrass and Old-Time Country Revue lies in its family roots. Kala Parker, assistant director of the…
Driving up the Seventh Street exit ramp from I-10 West, there is a sign with a white arrow, pointing you south. It reads: “Cultural/Sports Facilities.” While the words may seem at odds with each other, the curators of the downtown Phoenix arts community want to show you otherwise. In the…
Just last week, the makers of a film called Pendulum gathered in a brand-new Dallas movie theater to screen their picture. The event was a fund-raiser for both the Susan J. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s Race for the Cure and the trust fund for the children of Pendulum co-star Alissa…
A six-inch seal — blue, shiny and cartoonish — is emerging from a miniature plastic toilet. With the pull of a cord, the marooned animal comes to life. A creepy melody starts to play — the music of some deranged jewelry box — and the seal’s head begins moving back…
From the moment one enters Stage West at the Herberger, Black Theatre Troupe’s production of The Gospel at Colonus grabs one’s coattails and hangs on ’til the final hosanna. Pulling off a flawless production of The Gospel at Colonus — which fuses Greek theater with Pentecostal oratory and West African,…
If We Were Soldiers smells at all familiar, perhaps you’re confusing it with the stink emanating from a nearby theater screening Black Hawk Down. After all, on their shiny, blood-drenched surfaces, they’re damned near the same movie: Both are based on books that recount true-life battles that claimed the lives…
“Pray for us.” So ends a note Judd Apatow sent out last week to television critics who have been supportive of his series Undeclared, among the few half-hour comedies to debut last fall with any modicum of acclaim and expectation. Set at a northern California university and populated by awkward…
Those possessing a vampire’s keen senses may see through the Goth grunge of Queen of the Damned to a deeper ideological conflict lurking beneath. On one side there’s novelist Anne Rice, sweepingly sensuous and profoundly humorless, who welcomed the cannibalization of her second and third bloodsucker books to create this…
The combatants in Patrick Stettner’s compelling first feature, The Business of Strangers, are a middle-aged software executive (Stockard Channing) wearing a steel-blue suit and an air of professional hauteur; the executive’s mysterious new assistant (Julia Stiles), fresh out of Dartmouth and full of self-righteous aggression; and a cocky “headhunter” (Frederick…
If you hear the booming thunder of Japanese taiko drums in the next couple of days, follow the catchy rhythms to Heritage and Science Park, where Matsuri, A Festival of Japan, will kick off a weekend of events — including the expertly choreographed drumming provided by the Japanese American Citizens…
Valley fans of major league baseball are doubly blessed for 2002, and not just for the obvious reason — the Diamondbacks’ highly anticipated follow-up to last year’s stunning World Series victory. No, another baseball bonus happens early and yearly, with much less fanfare but plenty of action: Cactus League Spring…
Maybe this won’t seem like such a big deal to you, since you don’t watch The Education of Max Bickford–which is on CBS Sunday nights. Or maybe you’re one of the 9 million who do, in which case, well, sorry about that. But stay tuned nonetheless, because this small tale…
Part comedy, part tragedy and all bite, No Man’s Land damns and mocks in equal measure, painting a picture of war’s absurdity that should make peaceniks of us all but, likely, won’t. Although set in the former Yugoslavia during the Bosnian-Serbian war, the movie transcends its geographic borders: Bosnian-born writer-director…
Following his dazzling change-of-pace performance in Training Day, Denzel Washington returns to more familiar turf in another of his trademark roles as One of the Best Human Beings in the World in John Q. The opening scenes establish quickly (and a bit heavy-handedly) that John Q. Archibald is the finest…
Do people over 40 listen to the radio? Dominated by teens and twentysomethings, pop music subjects its older — if hardly gray — audiences to the continual angst of young love. If you’re looking for a more mature take on life’s relationships, consider local singer and songwriter Annie Moscow. While…
