AltWeeklies Wire
'Benjamin Button' Looks Cool, but Is That Reason Enough to Care?new
Unfortunately, Benjamin's aging process isn't the only thing the movie gets backward. Despite all the care lavished on its execution, it never manages to be about anything more than its own gimmickry.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
12-30-2008 |
Reviews
Bruce Campbell Talks About 'My Name is Bruce'new
Someone unfamiliar with Campbell's self-deprecating humor and mock-abusive relationship with his often obsessive fans may wonder why any actor would choose to depict himself as a washed-up, egotistical B-movie hack.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
11-11-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman Gets His Chance in the Director's Chairnew
The movies made from Kaufman's scripts often suffer from a certain airlessness, plunging deeper and deeper into a world with no center. Synecdoche, which takes its name from a literary device in which a part is substituted for the whole, takes that centerlessness as its central theme.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
11-11-2008 |
Reviews
New Documentary Shines a Light on Dick Clark and Philly's Payola Pastnew
Wages of Spin looks deeply into the ways Clark's vertical integration in the record publishing business, record pressing business and talent representation screwed over many a little guy.
Philadelphia City Paper |
A.D. Amorosi |
10-14-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Simon Says: An Interview with Simon Peggnew
Toby Young as described by Toby Young in his memoir How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is an insufferable prick. But that wasn't the Toby Young that Simon Pegg met when he sat down with the writer he was set to portray on screen.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
10-06-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
'The Lucky Ones' and 'Flow': Water Worldsnew
Another flick plays it safe with the Iraq war, while the emerging global water crisis offers real scares.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-29-2008 |
Reviews
Finding Joy in the Little Things at the Toronto Film Festnew
Speaking strictly in percentage terms, film festivals are defined more by the movies you don't see than the movies you do. That went double for the just-ended Toronto International Film Festival, where the initial buzz was mainly concerned with the lack of putative Oscar contenders.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-23-2008 |
Movies
The Coen Brothers Switch It Up for Their 'No Country' Follow-upnew
At first blush, Joel and Ethan Coen's high-grade farce Burn After Reading feels like an abrupt, if not unwelcome, about-face from the moral sobriety of No Country for Old Men.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-16-2008 |
Reviews
Life Goes On 'I Served the King of England'new
In many ways, Menzel's latest serves as a bookend to that early masterpiece, Closely Watched Trains, beginning with another wide-eyed youth on another train platform, his personal desires consuming his entire attention as the Nazis march in just offscreen.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
09-09-2008 |
Reviews
Darby Crash Gets a Biopic as Ragged as He Wasnew
What We Do is Secret is told in a combination of narrative and faux-doc pieces, which becomes something of a patchwork, with the talking-head segments a jarring shift from the gritty punk milieu.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
09-02-2008 |
Reviews
Runway Project Celebrates 'Project Runway'new
Runway Project is National Mechanics' screening party for the fifth season of Bravo's fierce reality TV show. Getting into the game is easy: Name your team (the more ProjRun-related the better) and name your "model," a hysterically disproportionate knockoff Barbie that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "hot tranny mess."
Philadelphia City Paper |
Rebecca Grites |
08-26-2008 |
TV
Sweet Talking with the Film Banditsnew
The film collective of 15 or so just finished casting for Pinheads!. Their first short is the story of a group of second-rate villains — a pickpocket, a dine-and-dasher, a movie pirater and the aforementioned cupcake thief — who play in a bowling league against an equally unimpressive lineup of heroes.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Monica Weymouth |
08-26-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: film festivals, cupcakes
Steve Coogan Suffers the Slings and Arrows of Being a Dopey Shakespeare Hopefulnew
Coogan spends the film in a tug-of-war with the script; he's forced into some blatantly obvious humor, from the broad commercial parodies to the endless mangling of his character's consonant-heavy name. But he also maximizes the thinly veiled rage burbling under Marschz's veneer of undying optimism.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
08-26-2008 |
Reviews
Blacklisted Scribe Dalton Trumbo Finds His Way onto the Big Screennew
Adapting Christopher Trumbo's stage play, Peter Askin's Trumbo pays tribute to blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in his own words — but not the words you'd expect.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
08-19-2008 |
Reviews
Where are the Girls in Stoner Flicks?new
Other than Greg Araki's Smiley Face (featuring the totally underrated Anna Faris), which Rickey mentions, I can't think of any female stoner taking point in a movie.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Molly Eichel |
07-31-2008 |
Movies
