Visual ArtsFriday Flicks: Britflicks
Carly SchollAugust 3, 2018
Two films that explore two very different facets of British culture:
The sequels hit the multiplexes this weekend...
Top picks for movie-goers this weekend.
Notable moviegoing choices for the weekend.
Visual ArtsFriday Flicks: Road Trip Edition
Carly SchollJune 28, 2018
Some cinematic roads-less-traveled for this weekend.
What will you see this weekend: the dino-centric, blockbuster franchise feature, or the darkly funny, feminist arthouse film?
Visual ArtsFilm Review: “Hippie Family Values” Documents Aging Hippie Community
M.V. MoorheadMay 23, 2018
A running gag in pop culture for the last few decades has been the image of the defeated hippie—cutting his hair, donning a suit and tie and joining the rat race like every other Joe. This may have happened plenty of times, but documentarian and UofA professor Beverly Seckinger’s Hippie Family Values demonstrates that it didn’t happen every time.
Visual ArtsWhat’s New at this Year’s International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival?
M.V. MoorheadApril 2, 2018
For the 14th year, the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival will run concurrently with the Phoenix Film Festival at Harkins Scottsdale 101. This year, both fests have expanded from 8 to 11 days, starting this Thursday, April 5. PHOENIX magazine had a chance to chat with IHSFF Director Monte Yazzie about what's new this year in the world of the cinematically scary and strange.*
Visual ArtsFilm Review: Saturday Church & Desperado LGBT Film Festival
M.V. MoorheadFebruary 8, 2018
A little awkward, like any 14-year-old's coming-of-age story, Saturday Church is an original, heartfelt musical of Ulysses' odyssey to self acceptance – like many of the films at the ninth annual Desperado Film Festival.
Visual ArtsWhat’s Up with Phoenix Fashion? A Look at Tempe’s LabelHorde Show
Lauren LoftusDecember 6, 2017
The good and the weird at LabelHorde’s Fashion Show from an intern who is no fashion expert.
Visual ArtsPhoenix OCD Festival Confronts Stereotypes of Mental Illness
M.V. MoorheadNovember 10, 2017
The “OCD” in The OCD Festival stands not for the common mental disorder, but rather for “Outstanding Cinematic Delights.” So, at least, claims organizer Suzanne Steinberg.
The festival’s title, says Steinberg, “is meant to confront negative stereotypes of mental illness. It is taking something negative such as a label and trying to associate it with something positive, such as a great film festival. The hope is that the message behind the festival says that people impacted by mental health are still beautiful, wonderful people who deserve to be a part of and cared for by our society.”
Visual ArtsRural Route Fest: Compelling Environmental Film Shorts Come to Phoenix
M.V. MoorheadAugust 23, 2017
The next offering from Phoenix’s No Festival Required film series isn’t one movie, it’s nine little movies. “The Rural Route Film Festival Touring Program: Short Films and Animations” is a compilation of the best shorts from the New York-based fest, which features non-urban subjects from around the world, often focusing on environmental issues.
If this sounds like a depressing or guilt-inducing prospect, don’t despair. It’s a surprisingly lively, engaging collection, often distressing but non-didactic and free of scolding (e.g. it’s your fault we’re watching sad polar bears floating away on melting ice). The selections are highly diverse in style and tone, and yet there’s a recurrence of themes and images between them that gives the show unity. Two of the shorts, for instance, involve the mining industry’s use of ill-fated canaries, Jesse Kreitzer’s Iowa-filmed early-20th century period mining drama Black Canaries and Marie Schlingmann’s disturbing, ambiguous thriller Canary.
Near the beginning of Pamela Tom’s documentary Tyrus, the painter Tyrus Wong, who died last year at the age of 106, explains that his Chinese name, Gen Yo, translates to something like “Buena Vista” in Spanish. The view from his eyes seems, indeed, to have been beautiful.