Aeon Flux (Paramount) Many things about this surreal sci-fi flick defy explanation, but nothing more so than the mystery of how it got made in the first place. On paper, it’s an archetypal setup for a bomb: a mostly forgotten cartoon, notable for its visual style and incomprehensibility, revived as…
Vast legions embrace the thing as gospel. Skeptics dismiss it as ecstatic nonsense. In any event, James Redfield’s peculiar novel The Celestine Prophecy has been a bulwark of New Age metaphysics since it first hit the best-seller lists back in 1993. By recent estimates, there are 14 million copies in…
¡Odelay! Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner, so you’d better dust off your sombrero and bust out your rusty knowledge of Spanglish, because there are plenty of phat fetes going down in P-town from Wednesday, May 3, through Sunday, May 7. Wanna celebrate Latino culture? You’re in the…
My friend Neil e-mailed me the other day. “I can’t take another day of this,” he wrote. “If I hear about one more ‘Junior’ production being staged in Phoenix, I’m going to throw myself under the wheels of a bus.” Like me, Neil is a theater critic who’s troubled by…
Epic Proportions: This comedy by playwrights Larry Coen and David Crane came about after the pair noticed an extra in a biblical epic they were watching on television being crushed by a falling column. Coen and Crane (who’s best known as co-creator and executive producer of TV’s Friends) began to…
Casanova (Disney) Dr. Dolittle 3 (Fox) Elevator to the Gallows (Criterion) 50 Greatest Kid Concoctions (Time Life) Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Sony) The Heirloom (Tartan) Inspector Gadget: 4-Disc Set (Shout Factory) The Intruder (Fox Lorber) Magic (Dark Sky) Match Point (DreamWorks) The Passenger (Sony) The Patriot: Extended Cut (Sony)…
The Valley’s favorite spoof metal band does covers of songs from bands like Skid Row, Warrant, Poison and Cinderella, complete with heavy metal wigs. Sundays, 10 p.m., 2008…
A Bigger Splash (First Run) Breakfast on Pluto (Sony) Cross of Iron (Henstooth) Event Horizon: Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Games of Love and Chance (New Yorker) Herbie Hancock: Possibilities (Magnolia) Hostel (Sony) I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Plexifilm) Kickboxer: Five-Disc Collector’s Set (Lions Gate) The Killing Time (Anchor Bay)…
What does it mean to be an American? I have a hunch it’s a question many U.S. citizens rarely consider. Sometimes, it is not until others define us that we gain clarity about ourselves — and our nation. Heidi Hesse — born in Germany and raised in South Africa –…
Wanna knock the prez? Let’s make a show . . . preferably on television. Paul Weitz’s new satire American Dreamz imagines the Bush regime as an episode in the history of American entertainment and American Idol as the quintessence of U.S. democracy. So what else is new? The vision of…
Calling Rian Johnson’s teen indie drama Brick a piece of stuntwork might seem tantamount to hitting it with a pie, but it’s a high-speed wheelie of a strangely daring variety. Try this thumbnail definition on for size: a high school noir, complete with a Dashiell Hammett-derived plot line and a…
For most of January 2005, Michael Keaton was on the road pimping White Noise, the psychological thriller during which he stared at TV screens and pretended to be scared of static. Little wonder, then, that Keaton spent most of that couch time selling not his big-studio comeback, but his tiny-budgeted…
Roy Wasson Valle, 30, has been showing his colorful prints and sculptures of cartoonish beasts at 515 Gallery for a couple of years now, but you don’t have to be a First Friday regular to see his work. Just keep an eye on torsos across town – Valle’s surreal animal…
Marlon Brando sleeps with the fishes. But before the legendary actor died, he worked one last job. Curiously, it was for a videogame. In The Godfather: The Game, Brando attempts to relive his Oscar-winning role as Don Vito Corleone. From the raspy voice to the drooping jowls, it’s Vito, all…
Americano (MTI) Before he is due to take a high-powered corporate job, college graduate Chris (Joshua Jackson) heads off with two friends (Timm Sharp and Ruthanna Hopper) to Europe, where they end up in Pamplona for the running of the bulls. There, he encounters one of those saucy Latinas (Blade…
“Game Face: What Does a Female Athlete Look Like?” at Burton Barr Central Library: From start to finish, this inspirational exhibition defies convention. The collection of 182 color and black-and-white photographs depicts sportswomen of all ages, races and walks of life — from corseted, Victorian-era tennis players, to household names…
James Angel at Modified Arts: Artist James Angel is living proof that you can go home again. Faded, dusty road signs against a tea-stained neutral background evoke memories of family vacations in his Cosmopolitan, and the magically delicious breakfast cereal becomes a surface for “tagging” in Lucky G. But it’s…
There’s no question that Americans have a disturbing fascination with death. Why do we die? Is there an afterlife? These are some of the great mysteries of life. The quandary is that we cannot fully understand death until we experience it firsthand. For artist Petah Coyne, that isn’t a barrier…
In Nicole Holofcener’s first feature, 1996’s Walking and Talking, the writer/director warmly portrayed an adult female friendship, nudging at emotional issues without resorting to shtick or melodrama. Five years later, Holofcener’s Lovely & Amazing attempted to do the same for a family of women, but with wildly different results: Virtually…
The brain is a beguiling thing. One evening, you’re talking to a friend on the phone. Sometime later, you find yourself in a subway car, passing through an urban landscape. You don’t recognize the buildings, the neighborhood, or the city. Don’t know why you’re on the train. Don’t even know…
Believe it or not, The Benchwarmers is so lame that it can’t even lay claim to being the best Adam Sandler-produced movie not screened for critics in 2006; that dubious honor would go to Grandma’s Boy, which was by no means good but at least featured a kung-fu chimp and…
Their slogan “We make crack seem boring” may be only half true, but Male Pattern Radness certainly isn’t your average pop-rock duo. Billing themselves as an “acoustic fuck rock band,” former Applebee’s Grill & Bar waiters Ryan Lossing and Brandon Huigens have acquired a cult following in local clubs, where…
