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Debuting as a video game in the early ’90s, Mortal Kombat became both popular and notorious for its violent and gory death scenes. This renown led to feature films in 1995 and 1997; onward to TV shows, both animated and live-action; comic books and other incarnations; to a 2021 movie reboot; and now to a sequel, Mortal Kombat II. Not being a video game guy, I was unfamiliar with the franchise when I saw the reboot. Having no...

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  The best part of the original 2006 dark comedy The Devil Wears Prada, for me, was the opening title sequence. Snappily edited to KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See,” it intercuts impossibly stylish supermodel-type young women beginning their day in New York in contrast to our supposedly frumpy heroine, Andy (Anne Hathaway), as she heads to a job interview. The second-best part was the entrance that director David Frankel gave to the presumable title character, fashion...

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Around this time every year we ask Phoenix Film Festival executive director Jason Carney the same question: Is there a film you’re particularly excited about this year? And every year, he’s ready with an answer.   This year, his pick is the opening night selection – the comedy Power Ballad with Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas.   “It was one I really wanted,” Carney says. “I love films about music. It’s so charming. Also, I’m a huge...