Even those of us with a soft spot for dumb, high-concept Hollywood comedies might be outraged by the limp, unfunny nothingburger that is Keeping Up with the Joneses. A wan attempt to mix the comedy of domestic anxiety with the comedy of inept espionage — think Neighbors meets Central Intelligence…
In one of the more bizarre coincidences of film scheduling, the brief life of a TV journalist whose biggest scoop was announcing her own death on air is recapitulated for the second time this year. Released in August, Robert Greene’s porous documentary Kate Plays Christine highlights the impossibility, even the…
Rob Zombie can do better than 31. For proof, just watch any other Rob Zombie movie. The musician-turned-filmmaker’s body of onscreen work is as nasty and brutal as you’d expect of a metal singer whose first band took its name from a pre-Code horror film, but it’s also been marked…
If I have to hear Ti West’s movies called “slow burns” one more time, I might set my laptop on fire right quick. West’s breakthrough hit, The House of the Devil, was a leisurely paced throwback to early ’80s Satanic panic — before the slasher, with plenty of obvious jump…
“How could a big man like you fuck up like this?” That’s the question that Nathan Zuckerman fears being asked — in Philip Roth’s Pulitzer-winning American Pastoral (1997) — if he were to show the book he’s written about the tragic life of his old Newark classmate Seymour “Swede” Levov…
Phoenix Fashion Week 2016 opened at Talking Stick Resort on Thursday, October 13, with community night, an evening of presentations featuring T-shirts promoting charitable organizations, a collaborative collection from student designers, emerging creatives competing to be lifestyle designer of the year, and looks designed by literal children. Covered in beadwork…
Several Phoenix artists were honored Thursday, October 13, during the Mayor’s Arts Awards, presented with Phoenix Center for the Arts at Margaret T. Hance Park in downtown Phoenix. Phoenix Center for the Arts is operated by a nonprofit arts organization with an education focus. Its downtown Phoenix venue includes a…
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a day to mourn and pay respects to the dearly departed. It’s a longstanding Mexican tradition that can be traced to the Aztecs. In Mexico, this day is celebrated on November 2 by going to the cemetery and staying overnight…
Sometimes it becomes difficult — almost impossible — to separate the character from the actor. The Christopher Walkens and Steve Buscemis of the world will always be viewed as themselves first, their portrayals second. The same can be said for characters who align closely with the personalities of the men…
Best Zen Experience: The Japanese Friendship Garden The next time you need a moment of Zen, you’re welcome to join us at Ro Ho En, also known as the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix. Completed in 2000 as a symbol of the relationship between Phoenix and its sister city Himeji,…
Going out on a budget? Easy. This weekend in metro Phoenix, you’ll find everything from fresh-out-the-kitchen comedy, a quickie history lesson by way of a party, and some serious pride. For more things to do, see New Times’ curated calendar of events. Out of the Kitchen When they aren’t busy flipping…
On October 15, Scottsdale’s Sidewalk Surfer, located at 2602 N. Scottsdale Road, starts its 40th year in business. The shop has been serving skateboarders, rollerbladers, snowboarders, and all manner of extreme sport enthusiasts and aficionados for, think about it, generations. “There are people who came in here as kids who…
On an early fall evening, comedian Alisha Ratan is sitting outside a central Phoenix coffee shop with her improv partner, Meredith Howell. They’re discussing a recent sketch they saw that left Ratan stone-faced: a tired trope where the “nice guy” main character has been dumped by his girlfriend for a…
New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now. Here’s our list of the best places for entertainment in the Valley. Best Casino: Talking Stick Resort and Casino It’s close to 300 miles between Phoenix and the glitzy lights and ringing slot machines of the Las Vegas strip. Sure, some people…
Season three of Amazon’s Transparent has few of the cratering events that have marked our time with the Pfeffermans up to this point, but it continues to reward thinking viewers as it considers issues of gender and identity, the intersection of theory and reality, the lingering impact of sexual abuse…
“Shit’s getting ugly in the RuPaul Drag Race.” —Janae, Orange Is the New Black RuPaul’s All Stars 2 has been perhaps the greatest season of the only reality-TV competition that matters. Logo TV’s Emmy-winning series is not only a mainstream ingress into a historically devalued, antinormative art form for an…
The Thing died a noisy death when it debuted in 1982. In fact, this masterful paranoiac thriller about a vicious shape-shifting alien infiltrating a group of scientists stationed in Antarctica bombed so hard that director John Carpenter was fired from his follow-up gig working on Firestarter. (Roller Boogie director Mark…
“This is the best-kept secret,” Bill Konigsberg says. The award-winning young-adult author, who recently received both a Stonewall Book Award and a PEN Center USA Award for his YA novel, The Porcupine of Truth, is referring to Your Novel Year, the only online certificate program in the country for those looking to…
Like the rambling fixer-upper at its heart, Merchant Ivory’s Howards End has aged quite well, and not just because of the brightened-up 4K restoration from Cohen Media Group. It’s brisk and funny, prim but open-minded, testy about pomposity even as it exemplifies what once was the most pompous of all…
Don’t ever make the mistake of dismissing James Ivory’s E.M. Forster adaptation Howards End as a mere “costume drama.” Yes, the characters wear corsets and evening suits and talk through manners and inheritance. But in its own way, Ivory’s film — which has been newly restored and is being re-released…
Those lucky enough to be considered gorgeous by a large number of people — and talented enough to actually make it as a model — are pretty #blessed. But the reality is those careers rarely last past age 29. That is of course, unless you manage to spin your modeling career into an…
New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now. Here’s our list of the best festivals. Best Film Festival: Phoenix Film Festival The Phoenix Film Festival isn’t where you go to see big blockbusters. Instead, it offers films just on the cusp of breaking out, indie comedies, weird horror, documentaries, television…
