Orenthal James Simpson always seemed a singular figure. Hardly anybody got where he got or did what he did. Certainly nobody got away with it. But of course it isn’t just the man who fascinates: It’s the image. This he shares in common with every super-grandee and megastar, every tabloid…
If it had come out 20 years ago, when its creator was Hollywood’s best-paid screenwriter, Shane Black’s The Nice Guys might have stood, for some, as more proof that the studios had lost their way. So much money lavished on bloody buddy formula, on two-fisted archetypes cracking a case, some…
In his tight, trim, health insurance thriller A Monster With a Thousand Heads, Mexican-Uruguayan director Rodrigo Plá achieves a visual style that is ice cold but also deeply human — a clever way to depict an all-powerful system that feeds on our lives and thrives on our fallibility. Plá opens…
If you’ve passed through security at your local airport lately, it’s likely you’ll take special notice of a Nathaniel Lewis installation featured in the “2015 Contemporary Forum Artists Grant Winners” exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum. His Playland Security, created in 2016 with wood, metal, and fabric, sets the experience of…
The state of Arizona recently granted more than $400,000 in funds for some major renovations of the iconic WPA Building at the Arizona State Fairgrounds. The partly state-owned building is also sometimes referred to as the Civic Building, the Floriculture Building, or State Fair Civic Building, In 2014, the Arizona Exposition and…
New Times picks the best events in the Phoenix area from Monday, May 16, through Thursday, May 19. For more things to do, see our curated online calendar. Game Night Suppose some smartypants decided to conduct a study aimed at determining the hierarchy of the days of the week, best to…
Tom and Georganne Bryant’s front door is painted dark purple and is adorned with a wreath crafted from live succulents, bright yellow paper flowers, and fragments of hand-painted pottery tied in bundles. “I wanted something for the door that would look nice in a photograph,” she says, “so I asked…
Richard Bridgland was given an impossible task: recreate 1970s Hollywood for Shane Black’s buddy conspiracy thriller The Nice Guys … in Atlanta. As a production designer, Bridgland’s had to make the Czech Republic look like 1930s rural North Carolina (Serena), New Orleans look like West Virginia (American Ultra) and a…
As generic and impersonal as a new credit-card offer, Jodie Foster’s Money Monster is the latest big-studio production to try to cash in on populist outrage over Wall Street abuses and New Gilded Age inequality. There’s a lot of excitable talk about algorithms (or “algos”), the overuse of the term…
Each week, we will be recapping season one of Fuller House, episode by episode. Please enjoy only pictures of the cast wearing San Francisco Giants gear so they get the most out of whatever they had to pay to get the rights. Fuller House spent its 10th episode taking its…
We are, all of us, standing at fateful, unsought crossroads where swift changes of fortune derail a lifetime of expectation. Such is the setup for bestselling author Bill Clegg’s first novel Did You Ever Have A Family, released last fall to rave reviews. Clegg will appear at Changing Hands Bookstore’s…
Touchstone Gallery, 4168 North Marshall Way in Scottsdale, is getting ready to close up shop, says New Mexico-based gallery owner Joe Wilhelm. The gallery’s three other locations — in Sedona, Santa Fe, and Taos — will stay open, Wilhelm says. The gallery specializes in jewelry, minerals, and fossils. Merchandise is…
Over the past week, proud University of Arizona students have been closing their collegiate chapters in ceremonies all around campus, including Friday, May 13’s mega-commencement at Arizona Stadium. It’s been quite a journey for these graduates, now being set out into the world and facing their futures. It’s an excitement…
Established around November 2015, Cut Paste PHX is a creative group of adults set out to do one thing: Make collages. “We’ve been talking about doing some type of creative project for a while,” says Lani Hudson, who runs the group’s active Instagram. “So let’s get all these creative people…
New Times picks the best things to do in the Phoenix area from Friday, May 13, through Sunday, May 15. For more events, see our curated online calendar. Summer Opening Reception Forget the country western dance floor. When it comes to line dancing, street art is where it’s at. Consider the…
After Mesa Arts Center executive director Cindy Ornstein attended San Francisco’s first Market Street Prototyping Festival in April of 2015, she started imagining a similar festival happening in downtown Mesa. The California festival engages creative types and other citizens in creating engaging public spaces. Now, thanks to a $750,000 grant from the…
Phoenix artist Patricia Sannit received the 2016 Arlene and Morton Scult Contemporary Forum Award at Phoenix Art Museum on Wednesday, May 11. Contemporary Forum is one of several Phoenix Art Museum support organizations. The membership-based group was founded 30 years ago, and has been providing grants to Arizona artists ever…
Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s microbudget black-and-white English Civil War mushroom-trip movie A Field in England (2013) squeezed a tense and bizarre story from just a few dudes wandering around in a field. The married couple and filmmaking team — Wheatley as director and Jump as writer — previously made…
At long last, Whit Stillman has adapted a Jane Austen book. To be sure, he has touched on her work numerous times — particularly in his 1990 directorial debut Metropolitan, in which an argument about Mansfield Park gave us the immortal line “I don’t read novels. I prefer good literary…
Each week, we’re recapping the second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt episode by episode. Watch out for porns. After episode three’s lackluster fare, we were worried that the rest of season two of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt would become a drag to watch. Instead, “Kimmy Kidnaps Gretchen” is a likely frontrunner for…
Modern home decor shop For The People just hit the one-month mark in its new retail space at 5102 North Central Avenue. But co-owners Shawn Silberblatt and Chad Campbell say they already feel like part of the community. “We’ve had a great reception from the neighborhood,” Silberblatt says. Co-owner Campbell…
Strange and frightening things tend to happen on Friday the 13th. Thanks to superstitions and triskaidekaphobia (aka the fear of the number 13), it’s a rather infamous date on the calendar associated with unluckiness and unfortunate circumstances. And thanks to the legendary horror film series of the same name, it’s…
