After the eye-crossing political backstory of the much-lamented Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies, it was refreshing.
Lest anyone suppose that the title Is God Is denotes a pious devotional picture, be advised: not so much.
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...
Jaafar Jackson plays the title role in the biopic Michael. The real-life son of Michael Jackson’s older brother, Jermaine, he's a bit of a ringer for his famous uncle, and he dances with some of the same inexplicable combination of precision and loose-limbed abandon
The Arizona Science Center took a bold step into the future last fall when it debuted the refurbished Dorrance Planetarium and renamed it the Dorrance DOME.
Featured CategoryMovies & FilmThe PHiXThe PHiX2026 Phoenix Film Festival Offer Power Ballads and Piano Tuners
M.V. MoorheadApril 10, 2026
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...
Many movies are based on the drama that can arise from a wedding. But there's drama and then there's drama, and the drama in The Drama makes what happens in Bride Wars or Wedding Crashers or Bridesmaids or even Rachel Getting Married look like a bridal shower game.
Movies & FilmFriday Flicks: Sofia Coppola Sews a Cinematic Love Letter in Marc by Sofia
M.V. MoorheadMarch 27, 2026
The Marc in Marc by Sofia is Marc Jacobs; the Sofia is Lost in Translation director Sofia Coppola, who directed this documentary about the fashion designer. The two are close friends, and the title is a reference to "Marc by Marc Jacobs," the designer's former side line of handbags, perfumes and the like.
The hero of Project Hail Mary is Ryland Grace, who wakes up aboard a spaceship on an interstellar odyssey. The rest of his crew have died in suspended animation, and he gradually recalls that he is the science officer, sent from Earth to gather data from a star that could stave off a catastrophe back home.
Evy hosts a podcast on eerie paranormal subjects. She's the skeptic; her co-host Justin, based in London, is the believer, a la Scully and Mulder. She's currently hosting from the house of her mother, who is unconscious in her deathbed upstairs, and for whom Evy is the sole caregiver.
The movie is a monster, stitched together out of wildly disparate sources of inspiration.
Movies & FilmBaz Lurhmann’s Elvis Concert Pic Returns to the Building
M.V. MoorheadFebruary 27, 2026
Opening wide this weekend after a week exclusively on IMAX screens, EPIC starts with a speedily-edited summary of Presley's early career, his detractors who condemned the moves of his gyrating pelvis, his military service, his movie career, etc.
Movies & FilmHere’s Looking at You, Casablanca, in Chandler
M.V. MoorheadFebruary 20, 2026
Admitting that Casablanca is one of your favorite movies is sort of embarrassing. It's too obvious and mainstream a choice, too cliched an emblem of the “silver screen” for a connoisseur of cinema.
A Private Life (or Vie Privée in its native tongue) shifts into a low-key Hitchcockian mystery with a sly edge of stinging, acerbic comedy.
Slated for 7 p.m. on Saturday, January 24 is The Fire Brigade, a 1926 MGM epic about firefighters and firefighting.