This weekend marks Josh Mendoza’s first time to have a film screening at the Phoenix Film Festival, but there’s a hunch that this is just the start for the Ahwatukee Foothills native.

A spider crawls up the leg of 18-year-old India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) early in Park Chan-wook's English-language debut, "Stoker," and she regards it passively, intrigued.

It’s a virtue and a great game plan to win playoff games if you can execute it.

Like the amped up comeback tour of two rockers who had their heyday sometime in the mid-'80s, Sylvester Stallone and director Walter Hill ("48 HRS.," ''The Warriors") join forces for a hard-hitting exercise in beefy, brainless fun with the New Orleans-set actioner "Bullet to the Head."

I have always been more interested in the questions than the answers. I guess that is because the questions begin conversations and answers, even the good ones, end them.

If Desert Vista’s traditional Senior Walk on Friday would have replicated the Thunder’s first-round win over Basha it would have been a little herky jerky instead of the methodical take-it-all-in process it is meant to be.

Sharing her story of survival and regained faith, author and motivational speaker Immaculée Ilibagiza will be visiting St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Community on Monday.

The Mountain Pointe badminton program showed on Saturday why it is favored to win the state team tournament this week after a terrific showing in the individual state tournament at Independence High.

The focus leading up to Friday’s Desert Vista and Hamilton contest will mostly be on the state championship game.

Cheeky and snarky but with an infectious energy, “Pitch Perfect,” a comedy set in the cutthroat world of competing college a cappella groups, makes us fall in love with the very thing it’s making fun of. It’s ridiculous and predictable but also just a ton of fun, so you may as well give up and give in to your inner musical theater geek.

Halfway through, really?

The state’s high school football schedules were released Friday, so it’s time to take a look at some of the most intriguing matchups of the fall.

The 64th Annual Primetime Emmy nominees are to be announced on July 19. As a memo to Emmy voters, here are my personal selections for the 10 best drama and comedy series of the past television season.

The 64th Annual Primetime Emmy nominees are to be announced on July 19. As a memo to Emmy voters, here are my personal selections for the 10 best drama and comedy series of the past television season.

The wonderful thing about discovering an author you enjoy who writes a series is the anticipation of the next book ... just knowing that as you turn the last page there is another good book on the horizon. And if you discover them after the series has been around a while, you can eagerly go from one book to the next with the characters you have come to love.

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is not to be confused with the new Steven Spielberg film staring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president. That biopic won’t be coming out until December. Where the upcoming Spielberg film is aiming to be a somber, historically accurate life story of our nation’s most celebrated leader, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” tells an action-packed, fictionalized account of how Honest Abe once fought against vicious vampires. The end result makes “Inglourious Basterds” look like a documentary. As preposterous and silly as “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is, the movie does deliver genuine thrills and solid fun nevertheless. That’s really all one can ask from a film like this.

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is not to be confused with the new Steven Spielberg film staring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president. That biopic won’t be coming out until December. Where the upcoming Spielberg film is aiming to be a somber, historically accurate life story of our nation’s most celebrated leader, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” tells an action-packed, fictionalized account of how Honest Abe once fought against vicious vampires. The end result makes “Inglourious Basterds” look like a documentary. As preposterous and silly as “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is, the movie does deliver genuine thrills and solid fun nevertheless. That’s really all one can ask from a film like this.

Here's Jenny McCarthy, the 2.0 version.

Snow White has been mesmerizing moviegoers and TV watchers with a smile and a song -- and, now, a sword -- since 1937, when Disney released its first full-length animated feature.

Universal City, Calif.  •  Which ‘bots are in, and which are out?

Universal City, Calif.  •  Which ‘bots are in, and which are out?

Spotlight Youth Theatre Artistic Director Kenny Grossman chose “Sweeney Todd: School Edition” for the current season to challenge his young actors. “We’ve never done a Sondheim show before, and this is some great material for our older kids to get involved with,” Grossman said. “It’s important for us to have something for everyone, and we’re not the type to shy away from material like this.”

In 1978, National Lampoon’s “Animal House” revolutionized the hard R comedy and is still considered the “Citizen Kane” of the genre. The ’80s followed with numerous other college/teen-aged/sex comedies like “Porky’s,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” and “Revenge of the Nerds.” With some of these ’80s flicks like “Screwballs” and “Joysticks,” you could tell just how raunchy they were based on the title. The 1990s, however, was a rather tamed decade. A majority of ’90s comedies rarely embraced nudity and kept the major swear words to a limit. There were two movies that strived to be as vulgar and gleefully crude as the comedies of the ’80s though. One was “There’s Something About Mary.” The other was “American Pie.”

In 1978, National Lampoon’s “Animal House” revolutionized the hard R comedy and is still considered the “Citizen Kane” of the genre. The ’80s followed with numerous other college/teen-aged/sex comedies like “Porky’s,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” and “Revenge of the Nerds.” With some of these ’80s flicks like “Screwballs” and “Joysticks,” you could tell just how raunchy they were based on the title. The 1990s, however, was a rather tamed decade. A majority of ’90s comedies rarely embraced nudity and kept the major swear words to a limit. There were two movies that strived to be as vulgar and gleefully crude as the comedies of the ’80s though. One was “There’s Something About Mary.” The other was “American Pie.”

While many kids are worrying about friends and school, 13-year-old Anivarya Kumar was working on publishing her first book.