Gamers have a derogatory name for people who prize a game’s visuals above all: “graphic whores.” But sometimes great graphics can enhance game play — or even provide an experience that couldn’t have occurred otherwise. Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox 360 is a perfect example. The boxers in…
Through the Fire (Disney) He’s averaging just nine points in his second season for the Portland Trail Blazers, but considering where he came from and what he’s overcome, Sebastian Telfair is doing just fine, thank you. Jonathan Hock’s fascinating documentary takes us back to the young New York basketball legend’s…
All Dogs Go to Heaven/All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (MGM) American Psycho (Lions Gate) Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers (Warner Bros.) Basic Instinct: Ultimate Edition (Lions Gate) Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo — The Little Black Book Edition (Disney) A Fish Called Wanda (MGM) Get Shorty/Be Cool (MGM)…
It’s safe to say that St. Patrick’s Day is a big-time bash in the Valley. For those of Irish descent, it’s a time for taking pride in your heritage and honoring the patron saint of the Emerald Isle. For everyone else, though, it’s yet another day for getting soused and…
Deathtrap: Theater Works is trotting out this frankly done-to-death perennial, one that’s better remembered for the excellent film version starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Regardless of who’s playing it (and this production features mostly local unknowns), Deathtrap really only works if you don’t know the windup huzzah. Which is…
The Best of the Best of The Electric Company (Shout Factory) Breaking News (Palm) Buster Keaton: 65th-Anniversary Collection (Sony) The Californians (Hart Sharp) Curse Death & Spirit (Asia Vision) The Easter Bunny Is Comin’ to Town (Warner Bros.) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros.) The House on…
If you plan to see The Libertine, an artful and brooding period piece about a scandalously debauched earl of the English Restoration, a few words of advice before you leave: Take a peek at the sun. Drink in some fresh air. Consider bidding goodbye to the majority of the color…
A star who turned into a black hole somewhere between the release of, oh, The Wedding Planner and Sahara (or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Two for the Money — really, where to draw the line), Matthew McConaughey is better known of late for shooting tequila…
Anyone who remembers the 1977 Wes Craven film The Hills Have Eyes, which was and remains a piece of Milwaukee-beer shit, remembers it because A) they had a memorable fuck-or-puke night at the aging neighborhood drive-in; B) Michael Berryman’s uniquely hairless mug, which glared from the video store horror sections…
Michael Frayn’s better plays tend to be overshadowed by his best-known work: the superlative backstage farce Noises Off, or any of his several clever novels (most notably Headlong, a Booker Prize contender). Frayn’s Benefactors, which won the Olivier Award in 1984 and was later revived in London, is one of…
Nicolas Glaser was one among a handful of A-list stage actors who called Phoenix home in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Like most of the rest of them, Glaser lit out for the Great White Way, where he’s made a success playing good guys, gangsters, and everything in between…
Ask gamers of a certain age about Resident Evil, and a vivid memory springs to mind: They’re inching down a long, quiet hallway. Suddenly, a zombie dog crashes through a window. A ghostly howl. Insatiable jaws. Mommy, can you tuck me in tonight? The original Resident Evil pretty much single-handedly…
The Tenants (Sony) Fifteen seconds into the video for “Nuthin but a ‘G’ Thang,” it was obvious that Snoop Dog had charisma to spare. More than a decade later, with his performance as ’70s-era radical author Willie Spearmint, it’s official: The man can act. Snoop’s shambling, searing performance is just…
It’s safe to say that St. Patrick’s Day is a big-time bash in the Valley. For those of Irish descent, it’s a time for taking pride in your heritage and honoring the patron saint of the Emerald Isle. For everyone else, though, it’s yet another day for getting soused and…
Annie Duke’s Conquering Online Poker (Big Vision) The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Megaset (A&E) Battle’s Poison Cloud (Cinema Libre) Bleak House (BBC Warner) Camara Oscura (Warner Bros.) Charmed: The Complete Fourth Season (Paramount) Death Tunnel (Sony) The Hobart Shakespeareans (Docurama) The Ice Harvest (MCA) The Lords of Discipline (Paramount)…
Didn’t Richard Donner retire? A 1980s star-director name, among many, that should now send bolts of discouraging dread down your spine, Richard Donner may well be seeing his filmmaking skills peak with 16 Blocks — even if saying it’s his best, least flatulent, most efficient film is tantamount to saying…
It should be too early in the year to expect a good movie, let alone a great one; anything released prior to the Oscars is bound to be forgotten by spring. Yet here it is, the first — dare we use the term that’s all but been stripped of meaning…
What do little girls want? If we are to follow the emotional heart of Aquamarine, a new film about two 13-year-olds who help a runaway mermaid fall in love, the answer is . . . bling. Hailey (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, pretty much a Lindsay Lohan ringer) and Claire (Emma Roberts)…
The world première of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party at the Toronto International Film Festival last September had the vibe of a sold-out concert — all those spotlights beaming to and fro in front of a venerable old theater, all that pushing and shoving for the best seats, all those celebs…
If you’re a parent trying to teach your sullen teenage kids that movies with subtitles aren’t all bad, try taking them to see Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor). Like Christophe Gans’ The Brotherhood of the Wolf or Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this is a foreign-language film that proves that…
Gregory Sale, 44, has made all sorts of art. He’s done performance pieces, he’s worked in fabric, paint, wood, found objects, epoxy resin, you name it. He works out of a studio in his downtown Phoenix home. He’s also the visual arts director at the Arizona Arts Commission, where he’ll…
Last fall, Microsoft hyped its pricey Xbox 360 by promising to reinvent gaming as we know it. The blockbuster “next generation” titles were supposed to harness the machine’s awesome power to deliver high-definition graphics and impossibly realistic action. But a funny thing happened on the way to the future. The…
