America is not a nation of performers. The average American, given the choice, would rather go to an important job interview naked than stand up in front of a large group of strangers to sing. So it’s very odd that an entertainment like karaoke has become and remained so popular…
Thursday, October 7, is shaping up to be Valley theater’s biggest opening night of the year. At least half a dozen fairly major shows open that night. Here’s a quick run-down of your many options as a Mr. or Ms. First-Nighter: Play On! — Arizona Theatre Company kicks off its…
Grown-ups, take heart. Even if you misspent your summer at the movies pigging out on reheated space adventure, slob humor and stubborn, old ballplayers who won’t hang up their spikes, all is not lost. A powerful and intelligent film called American Beauty has volumes to say about the way people…
The last year has seen much discussion of Alfred Hitchcock, between Gus Van Sant’s eccentric Psycho reenactment and the 100th anniversary of the master’s birth. Much of the focus, rightly enough, has been on the far-reaching effects of the 1960 Psycho, but the film Hitchcock made the year before, the…
The premise is preposterous, the final score inevitable, and the record reading on the feel-good-ometer is totally predictable. But Mystery, Alaska comes furnished with some winning quirks and charms — including a very funny bit concerning premature ejaculation at 20 degrees below zero. So even if you don’t really believe…
There are a few plot loopholes in Double Jeopardy that, if scrutinized, would unhinge the entire story and seriously truncate the movie’s running time. Two of the more gaping ones involve narrow escapes allowed between a profoundly wronged wife and her devious, scheming husband. In the heat of their conflict,…
Lula Washington is darn busy. Days before hauling the latest edition of the Lula Washington Dance Theater to Phoenix, she’s racing from classes at her school in inner-city L.A. to rehearsals for a video project she’s working on for NASA’s Mars Millennium Project. She has only a couple of minutes…
Her/She Senses, a collaboration of performance artists Angela Ellsworth (co-founder of the local nonprofit Live Art Platform) and Tina Takemoto, brings its brand of cleanliness to the Valley this weekend for the first time since 1996, when the two women, along with 900 pounds of carrots, took on the Icehouse…
The delayed monsoon pissed down for a good 20 minutes. It was just enough rain and whipping wind to nettle the hundreds who had set aside this Wednesday night for purchases of cactus pears and chain saws. The storm sent most of them racing for their cars. Thousands of neatly…
End-of-the-century themes are big this year, and Phoenix Theatre has begun its 79th season with an unfortunately mawkish one. “The Way We Were” allows the company a new excuse to haul out the war-horses and to stage — for the third time in eight years — a ’50s musical revue…
Have you heard? The only tools a nice fellow needs to repair the damaged psyches of an entire town are a guilty conscience and a dash of insight. That, at least, is the premise of Lawrence Kasdan’s silly new social parable, Mumford, in which the eponymous hero poses as a…
The joke that opens Jakob the Liar, the new Holocaust comedy (talk about an oxymoron) starring Robin Williams, captures the bittersweet quality — the grim reality mixed with laughter — that the rest of the movie tries and fails to embody. The story takes place in an unidentified Jewish ghetto…
In 1846, Mexico was in a state of disarray, as various bandits and warlords roamed the land jockeying for power. Knowing an opportunity when he saw one, U.S. President James Polk sent the Army down to the border to prepare for an invasion, hoping to gain control of the Santa…
Deep within the halls of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., is a grand room known as the Statuary Hall. All 50 states have contributed sculptures of “distinguished persons” to represent great moments from their history. Most of these contributions are brass or marble statues of a bunch of dead…
An upcoming two-part PBS omnibus of six documentary shorts has a special and ongoing relevance to this area, which is made clear by its title: The Border. The goal of the show, hosted by 20/20’s John Quinones, is to get away from the hysteria and distortion that surround much of…
In the early Sixties, long before words like radical and counterculture would become bland marketing doublespeak for rap groups and chain stores, a handful of beat college and FM stations around the country started freeform radio programming. The radio stations employed self-ruling DJs who eschewed starch-shirted formats and championed sounds…
For the past decade or so, our local theater season has kicked off with a musical comedy rerun, courtesy of Phoenix Theatre Company. This year, upstart Ensemble Theatre has upstaged PT’s tradition by launching its first full season with a swell production of a crafty Craig Lucas comedy. Reckless, which…
“You and me?” asks catcher Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly) of his old friend, veteran pitcher Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner). “One more time?” It’s a poignant moment, the top of what may be the last game of Chapel’s career before he’s either traded or quits the game he’s loved and…
Since his TV show ended, Martin Lawrence has gotten more ink for his off-camera life than for his movie career. There’s nothing about Blue Streak that is likely to change that. It’s a shame, because the basic plot — which sounds like something from one of Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder…
Modern word processing has made life easier for screenwriters: no need to retype some old classic with your own little changes; nowadays you can just download the screenplay for, let’s say, The Exorcist, search for “adolescent girl,” replace with “twentysomething single woman,” and — voilà! — you’ve got a brand-new…
Let’s imagine the apocalypse has come; our world is about to end. As the final human inhabitants of this planet, we need to think about what we will leave for those creatures who may come after us. Our mission should be to find some way to preserve Laura Hendrie’s novel…
Van Gogh got it from sunflowers and Gaugin from naked island women. Andy Warhol got his from a can of Campbell’s soup. From sources no less diverse came the inspiration for the artists contributing to “Color Rage! Spectrum-Bursting Quilts,” on exhibit at Chandler Center for the Arts through Friday, October…
