Local YA authors Amy K. Nichols and Bill Konigsberg have been announced as spring 2016 writers in residence by the Arizona State Library’s Archives & Public Records office. Nichols will serve as writer in residence at the Glendale Public Library from March through May, while Konigsberg’s residency will take place…
Consider this month’s First Friday the art equivalent of training wheels. In the next few weeks, two multi-day art happenings go down in metro Phoenix. A mural festival and block party dubbed Paint Phoenix happens March 3 to 5, and the annual Art Detour event takes place March 19 and…
Let’s give Gods of Egypt this much: An hour in, a giant cobra crashes and explodes like a bad guy’s car in a dumb movie from the ’70s. That snake, one of two in Alex Proyas’ film, is wide as a locomotive and long as a parade. It’s also straddled…
What if Terrence Malick directed an episode of Entourage? Well, we’re about to find out, sort of. In Knight of Cups, the director of Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life turns his roaming camera and ruminating voiceovers toward Los Angeles and the movie business,…
In Zootopia, animals do a lot of the things that animals in Disney movies usually do: They speak, to begin with; they walk upright and wear funny clothes; they exhibit attitudes that align or ironically misalign with their species’ appearance and reputation; they hold jobs; they experience outsize emotion and…
The title of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s strained dark comedy, in which the War in Afghanistan serves as the backdrop to an American woman’s self-actualizing journey, is the military phonetic-alphabet rendering of WTF. The mild Islamophobia and highly questionable casting choices in the film call to mind other texting…
Fans of local talent, Saturday Night Live, and Phoenix’s SAS Fabrics store at long last have a cinematic place to meet: Aidy Bryant’s new short film, Darby Forever. Phoenix native Bryant, now in her third season as an SNL regular, plays Darby, a winsome loser who clerks in a sleepy,…
Soon, Grand Avenue will be home to a new arts destination. Laura Dragon, who operates {9} The Gallery, is working with artists Robert Gentile and Michael Viglietta to create a studio and exhibition space at Oasis on Grand. Owned by Laurie and Tom Carmody, Oasis on Grand is a complex of…
It feels like we always open this feature by saying, “Wow, it’s such a great month to be a nerd in Phoenix!” But that’s only because it’s consistently true. This month, Phoenicians can watch cult classic movies in brand new ways, learn about science new and old, dance with dinosaurs,…
The man behind this week’s cleverly titled OUTLOUD: More Stories from the Gayborhood insists there’s still relevance in a gay-specific plays festival. “There’s less of a need to be on a soapbox about gay rights these days,” says the event’s organizer, journalist Richard Schultz. “But there are still points of view about…
New Times picks the best arts and culture events in metro Phoenix from February 29 to March 4. The Danserye Leap Day suggests leaping about the dance floor. But it’s Monday, and you’re wiped. The next best thing is listening to dance music — beats from assorted cultures and historical…
Springs is here, and it’s no secret: March is one of the best months to be an Arizonan. With weather like this, there is no reason to stay inside. Lucky for you, we have compiled a list of five outdoor adventures to get involved in this month. Dance Walk Phoenix…
Water, art, and light. That’s the typical triad for the annual Canal Convergence, presented by Scottsdale Public Art along the Scottsdale Waterfront. This year’s ran from Thursday to Sunday, February 25 to 28. Light figured prominently in most of our favorites this time around, including floating sculptures made with fishing…
We’ve all been there. You finally get around to watching this year’s nominees, and you think, “Didn’t I see pretty much this same Oscar-bait movie last year?” You probably did, thanks to the McKee/Weinstein-driven formula behind most Best Picture noms. You can even build your own! Just mix and match…
As the brilliant and bespectacled Liz Lemon once said, “Leap Day is not a thing.” Oh, but it is. February 29 may only come but once every four years, but it’s something worth celebrating. Since real life is for March, and nothing that happens on Leap Day counts (according to…
No matter how nerdy I’ve been in my life, I could always comfort myself with the knowledge that I never — in my adult life, anyway — wrote “fan fiction.” That changed a year ago this month, when Leonard Nimoy passed on. The actor, of course best known for playing…
Beginning in the fall of 2017, the School of Art at Arizona State University’s School of Art will offer a Bachelor of Arts in fashion program, according to ASU School of Art director Adriene Jenik. The program will be headed by Dennita Sewell, curator of fashion design at Phoenix Art…
The book tour is starting, and Victoria “V.E.” Schwab is nervous. “I’m in a daze. I’ve been counting down for about 50 or 60 days,” the Nashville-based fantasy author says. “I’ve had signings at local bookstores and done convention appearances, where I picked the places I’d go, but this is the first time…
New Times picks the best arts and culture events in metro Phoenix from February 26 to 28. Canal Convergence The Scottsdale Waterfront will be alight with art again when Canal Convergence, an annual large-scale public art event, takes over the banks — and water — of the Arizona Canal, between Scottsdale…
At first blush, the least Romanian of the Romanian New Wavers, Radu Jude’s new film is in no way a steely-eyed, ultra-realist, uninflected working-class trudge, and the cranial wounds of Eastern European Communism are yet a gleam in the characters’ eyes. Rather, more acutely than The Hateful Eight, Aferim! is…
Bad cop movies — whether bad movies about cops or movies about bad cops — can be like those Arctic core samples from which scientists determine long-gone CO2 levels, though in this case they’re measuring American anxiety about police authority. Pop on John Hillcoat’s agonized pulp thriller Triple 9 in…
In the Winter Olympics, ski jumping is one of those sports — bobsledding and luging are others — where Joe and Jane Satellite Dish cannot tell the difference between a great performance and a terrible one unless the athlete is carried away on a stretcher. No doubt there are crucial…
