CINE AL FRESCO

Check out my short article, online at Phoenix Magazine, about "Moonlight Cinema" at Harkins Fashion Square in Scottsdale...

...this week featuring Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Sandlot.

THE SIN CROWD

Check out my reviews, online at Phoenix Magazine, of Ryan Coogler's badass Sinners...

...and the anthropomorphic footwear adventure Sneaks...

EXPIRATION DATE

Check out my review, online at Phoenix Magazine, of Drop...

...the new Hitchcock/DePalma style thriller from Blumhouse.

You can also check out my review of Truce...

...Cody Dull's comedy-drama, continuing at Stage Left Productions through April 27.

CAPITOL GAINS

Saturday Your Humble Narrator trudged down to the State Capitol here in Phoenix...

...as did many thousands of people all over the country, to protest the current Administration. Here are a few specimens of my characteristically abysmal photojournalism. Please excuse some of the coarse, if understandable, language; in one sign Our Current President is called by a word far too nice for him...

On a crowded bus on the way home, an elderly Native American man in a big cowboy hat cleared his stuff off the seat next to him and kindly offered it to me. I thanked him and sat. The bus was crammed with returning protestors carrying signs.

"What's going on?" the man, Christopher by name, asked me.

"There was a big protest at the State Capitol."

"Oh. What were they protesting?"

"[The President]."

"If you want to protest [The President], don't do it," said Christopher. "The people elected him. I'm not a Republican; I'm not a Democrat. But Biden slept on the beach, and let everybody in at the border. Terrorists, murderers, rapists. You want a rapist living next door to you?"

"No I don't," I said.

"[The President] is doing something good," he said.

"What part of town do you live in, Christopher?"

"Downtown. I pay my rent."

"Do you have kids?"

"I have a son. He's in the 101st Airborne."

"You must be proud."

"I'm not proud. I didn't do anything. I don't even have a home."

Indeed, he was wearing several layers of clothes on a warm day, and seemed to have a lot of his belongings with him. He looked homeless, at that.

"Well, you said you pay rent."

"Hotel. Does that count?"

Christopher told me he was a Chiricahua Apache from San Carlos who had moved to Phoenix after his wife passed on. He reiterated, several times, that Biden had "slept on the beach" while murderous, rape-minded hordes had overrun our society from the south. An internet search suggests that this refers to footage that showed up in the media last August, which I had somehow missed, of Biden committing the grievous sin of snoozing on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware with his wife.

Reminding me repeatedly that he was neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Christopher, who declined my request to photograph him, again assured me that the current President "is doing something good."

I remain unconvinced, but he seemed like a nice man.

I SAW DESIGN

Check out my quick preview, online at Phoenix Magazine, of the Arizona Architectural Film Showcase 2025...

...playing at a couple of different downtown venues August 9, August 13 and August 17. It's the latest from my pal Steve Weiss, the man behind the indie film series "No Festival Required."

WALL POWER

Celebrity Theater on 32nd Street in Phoenix has long been one of Your Humble Narrator's favorite venues in the Valley; I've seen such legends as Tito Puente, Art Garfunkel, Merle Haggard, Frankie Valli and Norm Macdonald perform on that circular stage. I hadn't been to the old-school place in several years, but last week I improbably found myself there, at a concert by Floyd Nation, a popular Pink Floyd tribute band.

Meaning no disrespect to a group that is obviously great of its kind, Pink Floyd has never been a major favorite of mine. Extended Prog Rock noodling tends to have a somniferous effect on me, and I spent much of the evening in the packed, very warm house with my eyes closed, trying to decide if I would be able to tell that it wasn't the genuine article from just listening. I decided I wouldn't. I also got in some lovely catnaps, between applause breaks.

Here are a pics from my phone that do the staging no justice:

This relaxed, pleasant evening was interrupted by one truly exciting highlight, however: Floyd Nation's performance of "The Wall," featuring Phoenix Boys Choir, under the direction of Herbert Washington, as guest artists.

The sight and sound of those little goobers, in their jackets and ties, marching resolutely up onto the stage and joining in the chorus brought the gray-haired, paunchy audience to our feet to sing along. I joined in as lustily as the rest, in my best English accent. It was one of the more hilariously awesome things I've witnessed in a while.

But I must admit that, in the context of this show, I'm out of sympathy with those lyrics.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the physically and psychologically abusive "education" in the British boarding school system that this song was opposing was often a horrifying atrocity. But the self-satisfied elderly American Floyd fans singing along at this show were not the victims of that abuse. In the parking lot at the Celebrity I saw a Trump sticker on an enormous GMC pickup; I doubt it was the only vehicle carrying such sympathizers.

And for people like us, in this country at this time...I think we do need some education. I think our lack of education is itself an opening for thought control.

I'm not even sure, at this point, that we don't deserve, and wouldn't benefit from, a little bit of dark sarcasm in the classroom.

Anyway, at the act break, promoter Danny Zelisko came up on stage and auctioned off two guitars signed by the band, to benefit Phoenix Boys Choir's upcoming trip to Spain and Portugal. They went for a total of $8,000! I bought a raffle ticket for a third such guitar, also benefitting the trip, but apparently I didn't win the precious axe. Go to PBC's website if you'd like to help.

NATURAL HORN KILLERS

In the multiplexes this weekend:

Death of a Unicorn--Paul Rudd plays Elliot, a lawyer, who is enroute to the home of his megarich employers, where he's on the verge of a massive promotion. With him is his sullen daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega), perfectly well aware that she's being used as a prop to show what a good family man Elliot is, to help him clinch the deal. They're both still bereaved over the recent death of his wife.

Driving up a mountain road to the remote home, Elliot hits and injures what appears for all the world to be a baby unicorn. Just as the creature is establishing a psychic bond with Ridley when she touches its horn, Elliot bashes it in the skull, meaning to put it out of its misery, and also to get the hell to the meeting for which he's already late.

They carry the body to the palatial home in the back of their rental SUV, but if you guess that their encounter with single-horned magical equines isn't over, you'd be right. The movie takes off from its literal-minded opening into a satire of the wealthy, their bottomless capacity to self-justify, and the similar capacity for toadies like Elliot or the rich family's manservant Griff (the excellent Anthony Carrigan)--to justify enabling them. The employers, you see, are in the pharmaceutical biz, and they--Dad Richard E. Grant, Mom Tea Leoni and cloddish son Will Poulter--soon realize that the creature's horn is a virtual panacea offering a cure for cancer, among other miraculous properties.

Written and directed by Alex Scharfman, Death of a Unicorn is strikingly funny and exciting. It also carries a tinge of sourness, but this is true of most satires. Rudd's obsequious, cowardly character is deeply unlikable for much of the film's length, but this is offset because, of course, Rudd himself is one of the most naturally likable actors on the planet.

In the same way, Scharfman offsets the (justified) bitterness of the satire with monster-movie elements--even some gore--and a dash of New Age mysticism. And he plays fair by the rules of these genres. It's also nice to see unicorns rescued from My Little Pony-style cutesy insipidity, and depicted as badass.

The Penguin Lessons--From horned horses to flightless birds: here's the second movie in less than a year set in South America and based, however loosely, on the real-life friendship between a foundling penguin and a bereaved aging man. Last summer we got My Penguin Friend, with Jean Reno. Despite Reno's undeniable star presence, some gorgeous scenery and the endearing title character, this new effort is a big improvement.

Steve Coogan plays Tom Michell, a cynical, lazy, emotionally shut-down English professor at a private school for upscale Argentine boys in Buenos Aires in 1976. On a weekend in Uruguay, he's walking on the beach with a beautiful woman he's met dancing, and they come upon an oil-slicked Magellanic penguin. 

Mostly to impress the woman, Michell takes the poor creature back to his hotel and they clean him up. Things don't work out with the woman, but Michell finds himself stuck with the penguin, smuggling him back into the school and trying to keep him a secret from the strict Headmaster (Jonathan Pryce). Eventually the bird, dubbed "Juan Salvador Gaviota"--the Spanish name of Jonathan Livingston Seagull--becomes a classroom teaching aid and a beloved mascot.

Juan Salvador also triggers a spiritual reawakening in Michell, who connects through him with the family of a cleaning lady at the school. The Junta has just taken over, and people are being "disappeared" off the street in broad daylight; Michell finds himself unable to remain apolitical.

Despite a couple of Monty Python references early on--the Pythons had a long and noble history with penguins--this Brit film isn't a broad comedy. At the beginning we're told that "This story is inspired by real events," whatever that may mean; the script by Jeff Pope is based on a memoir by the real-life Michell. Directed by Peter Cattaneo of The Full Monty--one of the very best poignant Brit comedies--The Penguin Lessons has laughs, but it's also character-driven and melancholy; in the long run it could fairly be called a tearjerker.

It's hard to imagine the movie working as well as it does with anyone but Coogan in the lead. As in the terrific Philomena (2013), he plays an elaborately ironic, acerbic poseur whose reserve is gradually and reluctantly broken down by a guileless fellow being; the penguin serves almost as well as Judi Dench in this role. But Coogan never gets sappy. He lets the marvelous bird melt us, then he dries the movie out again.