Ask Mikey Book Reviews Movie Reviews Recipes

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  Ahwatukee woman shares struggles, redemption with book of poems

  The period between Thanksgiving of 1974 and December 1975 was the toughest year in the life of Diana Fisher.Now anticipating her 70th birthday, the Ahwatukee Foothills resident looks to share her message with her newly published book that has been 36 years in the making.“Peace from Within,” a collection of short poems, describes Fisher’s release from a triad of death, divorce and alcoholism.Fisher originally composed the book during the 1980s while living in Loveland, Colo., but she had refrained from publishing until recently.“It was just this manuscript sitting there on my dusty closet shelf,” Fisher said. “I looked at it, and I started reading [it] and thought to myself, ‘Boy, there’s a lot here I’d like to pass on to other people.’ ”Fisher grew up loving music, particularly the piano. She enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder and graduated with a degree in piano performance.

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  Ahwatukee Children’s Theatre to host interactive zombie show

  The Ahwatukee Children’s Theatre has been chosen to host a special zombie-themed show that has been produced in 11 cities, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The show — part of Room Escape Adventures, a live interactive theater production — is titled “Trapped in a Room with a Zombie” and allows guests to put their detective hats on in order to solve clues that will help them escape the chained, man-eating zombie.“This is a really exciting show. It will be a fun night out and a great way to bring the community together,” said Michele Rubino, executive director of the Ahwatukee Children’s Theatre.“Trapped in a Room with a Zombie” is a one-hour show in which 11 guests will have to find a way to escape the zombie before they are touched. Despite the zombie being chained, its restraints will slowly lengthen as the show progresses and once a guest is touched by the zombie, they will have been “eaten” and required to sit and only participate verbally.If the guests are unable to solve the clues and escape in the allotted 60 minutes, they will all be devoured by the zombie. While the show can only allow 11 guests at a time, it will be available to be reserved by a group.The Ahwatukee Children’s Theatre’s production of “Trapped in a Room with a Zombie” is still in its early stages, so a set price has not yet been confirmed, but it will be approximately $25 per person. The theater is looking to partner with local businesses and is also considering including a meal deal.“This show has been running for 18 weeks in Chicago, and we hope to host it as long as we can,” Rubino said.

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  ‘Lucy’ is dumb delivery of smart idea

  “Lucy” is a completely inconsequential movie. You watch it, shrug your shoulders with a “meh,” walk away, and forget about it the next day. That’d be all well and good if “Lucy” was simply aspiring to be another run-of-the-mill blockbuster. The film actually seems to have greater ambitions, though, trying hard to tackle a number of complex ideas and theories. On one hand, the film’s ambition at least makes it more admirable than mindless entertainment. On the other hand, the fact that the film can’t deliver on its ambition ultimately makes it more disappointing.Scarlett Johansson has undoubtedly been on a roll as of late. She gave a voice-over performance worthy of an Oscar nomination in “Her,” stole the show in “Captain America: The Winter Solider,” delivered some transcendent work in “Under the Skin,” had a charming supporting role in “Chef,” and now that winning streak comes to an end with “Lucy.” To Johansson’s credit, she does bring a lot of spunk and finesse to the film’s otherwise one-note title character. Her performance might not save “Lucy,” but Johansson does make it a better movie than it would have been. That’s a true testament to a movie star’s talent.Lucy herself is an ordinary American woman who accidentally ends up as a drug mule for the Taiwanese mob. The drug has the appearance of Walter White’s baby-blue crystal meth, but that’s irrelevant. What it relevant is the effect of the drug, which allows Lucy to use more than the supposedly typical 10 percent of her brain’s capacity. This turns her into a super-smart, all-knowing being that’s more incredible than all the Avengers combined. It’s about as plausible as the science in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”This is actually a potentially ingenious idea for a science fiction story. But unlike a Christopher Nolan or Wachowski brothers picture, “Lucy” has nothing to offer other than ideas and philosophies. There isn’t a story or a character for the audience to become invested in. A majority of the movie is just Johansson and Morgan Freeman spewing out exposition as quickly as possible, taking no time for these fantastic ideas to blossom into something more meaningful. Maybe that’s why the film rushes through its narrative in just less than 90 minutes.Even as a purely philosophical film, “Lucy” doesn’t work as it only takes a break from the improbable exposition for cliché shootouts with stock villains. This makes “Lucy” feel like watching two different movies, one smart, the other stupid, and both pretentiously full of themselves. Whatever writer/director Luc Besson was going for, his film isn’t smart or stupid enough to be a success. It’s just a confused mess that doesn’t know what it wants to be or what it wants to say.The tagline for “Lucy” reads, “The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.” The tagline just as easily could have read, “Imagine what the filmmakers could have done if only had used 10% of their own brain capacity.”

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  Ahwatukee man’s board game lets players explore national parks

  Ahwatukee resident Charlie Binkele and his family have collaborated together to create “Trekking the National Parks,” a board game that focuses on exploring America’s different national parks.“The idea behind ‘Trekking the National Parks’ was to create a themed board game that would be entertaining, educational, engaging and inspiring,” said Binkele. “We wanted to develop a game that would captivate the interest and enjoyment of those who play it for many years to come, a strategic game with an infinite number of replay possibilities, with the central focus being our country’s 59 major national parks.”In a combination of Binkele’s design skills as a freelance artist and his parents’ extensive knowledge on the national parks, they created a game that shared the wonder of visiting some of America’s natural wonders.“My family has been visiting the parks since I was a small child. In 2009, my mom and dad set out to visit all 59 of our country’s major parks. So far, they’ve had the pleasure of trekking about 43 of them!” said Binkele. “A little over a year ago, my father suggested we combine our passion for the parks with my artistic and game design abilities and let others share in experiencing the parks in a fun and competitive way by creating an engaging game centered on these incredible landscapes.”The game can be played by two to six players and takes between 30 and 60 minutes to complete, but can be replayed an unlimited amount of times.“Those who have helped us play-test ‘Trekking the National Parks’ say the game is fun to play, easy to learn and requires strategic and tactical thinking in order to master,” Binkele said.

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  Don’t judge unless you’ve walked a mile in another’s shoes

  Dear Mikey,Lately, I have witnessed a family member go through some very difficult circumstances in her life. I as well as a few of my other family members have offered her help throughout the last few years off and on, and whether she has taken it or not, she always ends up just burning more bridges than she did before we offered our help. It got so bad to where she has burned so many bridges that we do not want to offer her help anymore because we feel like she would just continue to take advantage of us.This time, she got herself in a real mess to where there is nothing we can do for her except pray. Although she burned her bridge with me, it is extremely difficult to watch someone that I care about finally hit that brick wall we have all been trying to prevent her from hitting for all of these years.Some family members are being very judgmental with how her choices have led her up to this point in her life; however, I will have to disagree with their judgment. Lately, although I am very frustrated with the family member, I have tried to put myself in her shoes to try to attempt to grasp an understanding as to why she made all of the choices she did.Do you think it is wrong for all of us to judge her? Or do we have a right because we have witnessed her downfall all of these years?— Looking for empathy in the family

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  ‘Boyhood’ ambitiously condenses 12 years of youth

  If there’s one movie that every new adult should see this year, it’s “Boyhood.” While we’ve gotten a lot of great coming-of-age stories in the past couple years like “The Spectacular Now” and “The Way Way Back,” Richard Linklater’s extraordinary film takes the genre to unfeasible new levels.In 2002, young Ellar Coltrane was cast to play the film’s protagonist, a little boy named Mason. “Boyhood” was then filmed and written over a 12-year period, following Mason from age 5 to age 18. Throughout this entire process, Coltrane continued to reprise his role as Mason.Not only is “Boyhood” one of the boldest coming-of-age stories ever put on film, it’s one of the absolute boldest experimental films ever made. The fact that a picture like this got off the ground at all is an achievement in itself.Anyone who grew up this previous era will connect with “Boyhood” in some way, shape, or form. The film perfectly captures a generation consumed by iPods, Facebook, “Dragon Ball Z,” Britney Spears, “Harry Potter,” “Twilight,” “High School Musical,” “The Dark Knight,” “Halo,” and “Wii Sports.”“Boyhood” does so much more than merely reference popular culture highlights from the past decade, however. It’s a picture-perfect slice of life that feels all too real to be fiction. Had it only cast unknown actors, it probably could have been mistaken for a documentary.Of course, then we would have been deprived of a couple of career-best performances.