Justice may be blind, but vengeance, it turns out, has a very short memory. So it goes in Memento, the much-anticipated “puzzle” movie from Christopher Nolan (Following), which — as is already fairly well known — plays out its plot more or less in reverse. Pitting the protagonist (and us)…
Vincent Guerithault on Camelback, a wonderful restaurant, abuts a gas station on one side and a 7-Eleven on the other. Its parking lot is narrow, and the street that fronts it is noisy. Because the food inside is so good, its proprietor, Vincent Guerithault, could safely ignore his surroundings. Instead,…
The next few weeks mark your last chance this year to enjoy an event that has been going on in the Valley since before the first humans wandered out of the frozen north to escape the encroaching ice age. (Talk about your snowbirds!) Desert Wildflower Season, those few glorious months…
If you don’t like Tom Green, there’s no point in going anywhere near Freddy Got Fingered, as it won’t win you over. If you don’t know much about Tom Green but are curious, you might be well advised to watch videotapes of his show first, and be aware that inasmuch…
“Keep a diary and one day it’ll keep you,” said Mae West, and while the sentiment rings true, it does little to explain the mystery of why Helen Fielding’s sliver of literary history managed to keep anyone. Fluffy, shrill and approximately as deep as Cosmo magazine, the book somehow hit…
Josie and the Pussycats is not a comedy, and it’s even possible the movie’s not a work of fiction, despite being “based on” Dan DeCarlo’s 38-year-old Archie Publishing comic book. It’s tempting to brand the film as documentary, this year’s Scared Straight. There’s very little that’s funny about a movie…
Kingdom Come
A cappella music can be the most joyful noise a human can make. Tossing all musical instruments aside, a group can still be the most amazing band you’ve ever heard. Most often thought of in terms of ’50s-era doo-wop, straight vocal music is actually a limitless and timeless form with…
Did you know that Australia had titled nobility? Neither did I.”Neither did they,” says Dame Edna, by phone from Chicago. “It’s a very egalitarian society. But the ‘Dame’ title is something conferred by the Queen on remarkable women.” Dame Edna notes the company she keeps — the likes of Judith…
Paul McGuinness has never thought of himself as a teacher of life lessons, so it comes as a bit of a surprise for him to hear it relayed that Kelly Curtis considers him an adviser–hell, a mentor. It comes as even more of a shock to discover that Curtis recalls…
Walk around on Mill Avenue, or any other disaffected-youth-magnet sort of locale, and you’re bound to see a proliferation of bad tattoos. It’s symptomatic of a generation of 20- to 30-year-olds who years ago grew an affection for tattoos as a mark of rebellion and not artistry; scratchwork is omnipresent…
It’s difficult to make a convincing case for the comforts of things you can’t touch. Yet there’s clearly a physical ease about the fashions and furnishings in Phoenix Art Museum’s exhibition “Sophisticated Moderns: Claire McCardell and Edward Wormley.”Both were masters of the kinds of material subtleties that are often better…
“It’s hard for men to date me,” admits Tori King. “I just can’t let go and trust someone. Which, in turn, is hard on me, because I have a huge libido.”King also has a huge success — with The More Men Weigh, the one-woman show that depicts the breakup of…
Rose Robinson is tired. She’s tired of white men calling all the shots; tired of dreaming about one day being a famous singer, like Billie Holiday; and sick of working in seedy nightclubs. She sings in Sam’s Jazz Club on weekends, and at any other sleazy bar with a bandstand…
When German expressionist choreographer Susanne Linke visited Senegal in 1998, her collaboration with the men of Compagnie Jant-Bi produced Le Coq est Mort (The Cock Is Dead). And this Euro-African dance theater production, coming to Gammage Auditorium on Wednesday, April 11, is a 70-minute tour de force worth crowing about.The…
Arizona Opera’s last offering, Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment, was slim and frothy to the point of forgettability. No one is likely to have the same complaints about the season finale, Don Carlo, whatever else may be said about it. This work by Giuseppe Verdi — or, as generations…
This is how famous Denis Leary is: He begins and ends a story by saying, “To this day, when I see Mick…,” and by Mick, he means Mick Jagger. They became pals, oh, seven years back, when the Rolling Stones were on that week’s farewell tour, kickin’ it in the…
Hello, what’s this? Why, could it be another cautionary tale from Hollywood about recreational drugs being — alert the media! — not particularly good for people? (If only they could try the same with guns. Messrs. Heston and Silver: You awake yet?) Indeed, with Blow, director Ted Demme (Beautiful Girls,…
Easily the most creepy (and, by far, most interesting) thing about Along Came a Spider, yet another adaptation of one of James Patterson’s alleged mystery novels featuring beleaguered Detective Alex Cross, is how much co-star Monica Potter looks, sounds and acts like Julia Roberts. Granted, it’s hardly a startling revelation…
French director Patrice Leconte is a chameleonlike talent: Among his films to reach American screens are the psychological thriller Mr. Hire, the period satire Ridicule and the offbeat comic romance The Girl on the Bridge. But, in truth, all of Leconte’s films are romances at heart, though they are often…
Theater fans like to have it both ways. Sometimes it can be a small, bare-bones, black-box production with no frills to take away from the actor’s work and the author’s words. Other times it’s the big expansive show filled with all the spectacle the stage can hold. Either choice can…
Here we come, Once more down the street. Still gettin’ funny looks from Ev’ry old fan we meet. Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees, And people say we’ve done this before, But we’ve got bills to pay So we had them book us a tour! The posters at the Celebrity Theatre…
