THE DIVING BELL & THE BUTTERFLY (2007, directed by Julian Schnabel, 112 minutes, France/U.S.) WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (2007, directed by Jake Kasdan, 96 minutes, U.S.) THE SAVAGES (2007, directed by Tamara Jenkins, 113 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Who can forget the Phawker episode a few months back when our editor/provocateur ruffled academic feathers by opining that the journalism majors should study something/anything else and then bring that speciality into their journalistic interests? Outrage and hilarity ensued. Too bad we couldn’t get our fearless editor’s act booked into the country’s film schools because they’re aching […]
RECONSIDER THIS: Blade Runner Turns 25
BY MATTHEW DADDONA It is a curious symptom of our modern digital world — where the DNA of art can be easily transposed, transported or transformed with the click of a mouse, a process that used to take years and a cast of thousands in the analog age — that the basic premise of a landmark film can be altered in the director’s cut DVD version twenty years after the fact. This is literally rewriting, or more accurately re-editing, history. Prior to its initial theatrical release back in 1982, Warner Bros studio execs were so convinced that audiences wouldn’t be […]
USELESS ADVICE: Top 5 Gifts For Your Philly Magi
BY ABIGAIL SHEPHERD With five days till Christmas, the holiday rush has now transformed into an all out attack mission to find the perfect holiday gift. Malls are overcrowded, specialty stores are running low and eBay is getting around 478,237,482 bids per second. By now, most people know exactly what they want…and they plan on getting it no matter how many innocent civilians die in the process. But, there are some people who still have no idea what the perfect gift for their special someone is going to be. Well, have no fear! This handy-dandy list is like a […]
THE TAO OF EVA: Fortune Cookie Surprise
Phawker assistant editor Eva Liao is currently in Japan on an exciting journalistic-type assignment that we’d have to kill you if we told you about, etc. As promised, she has been sending us a little culture-shock postcard each and every day. Today we thought we’d open it up to readers and have one of our patented WRITE A CLEVER CAPTION AND WIN FABULOUS PRIZES contest. First prize is a dream date/Manhattan getaway with Alycia Lane a paperback copy of Charles Burns’ Black Hole. Send your clever caption to FEED@Phawker.com
HAPPY ENDING: It’s A Wonderful Life
Though he would never, ever admit it, this part ALWAYS makes the editor bawl like a baby.
JUNK SCI: The 12 Carcinogens Of Christmas
BY ELIZABETH FIEND LIVING EDITOR Christmas causes cancer. You knew it would come to this sooner or later. Okay, OK, Christmas doesn’t cause cancer, but Christmas trees might, and I’ll get to how both real and fake ones might lead to cancer. But the real point of this column is: If you have a real tree, don’t throw it in the trash! Recycle your tree. Recycle your tree. Recycle your tree. First, which is kinder to the planet — a real Christmas tree or a fake one? No Vinyl, That’s Final. That pretty much says it all. Fake trees are […]
PAPERBOY: “I’m Santa, You F*cking Dyke!” Edition
BY AMY Z. QUINN We know how it is: so many words to read, so little time to surf for free porn. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you, freeing up valuable nanoseconds that can now be better spent ‘roughing up the suspect’ over at Suicide Girls or what have you. Every Thursday we pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey caramel center of each edition. Why? Because we like you. ON THE COVER CITY PAPER: […]
CINEMA: Schlock King
THE MIST (2007, directed by Frank Darabont, 127 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK, FILM CRITIC Still lingering around in area theaters is Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980 novella The Mist, a film intriguing enough that it would be underselling it to say it is merely the best King adaptation in years. The End Days come to a small town Maine supermarket when an eerie mist descends the hills, obscuring a multi-tentacled beast that has jumped dimensions to terrorize the imprisoned shoppers. All manner of giant bugs and slimy vagina-like creatures lay waste to the All-American crew cowering among […]
5 Things U Should Know About Brown Recluse Sings
SUNSHINE SUPERMAN: Brown Recluse Sings (pictured above), The Neighborhood Choir, Surefire Broadcast, & Hermit Thrushes play Friday at Johnny Brenda’s. 1. Brown Recluse Sings is quite possibly the second or third worst band name EVER. 2. They are also the greatest band we have ever heard. This week. What do they sound like, you ask? Krautrock-ish. Or “pretty, drawn-out, simple” as the band says. 3. Hard to say if they are a band first and a DJ collective second or vice versa. Patrick Todd is the drummer. He is 1/3 of the SuperTodd Brothers, along with Ryan and Jesse Todd. […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: Al Green Loves Me This I Know
FRESH AIR MUST HEAR RADIO: A Baptist deacon, R&B drummer and former gospel-music editor for Billboard magazine, Robert Darden is also an English professor at Baylor University, where he runs the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. He’ll play some rare recordings for us. ALSO, few modern American films have achieved the cult status enjoyed by Ridley Scott‘s Blade Runner. But the picture’s path to film legend was anything but straight, with bitter disagreement between director Scott and Warner Brothers about the film’s original cut. A flop when it premiered in 1982, Blade Runner stars Harrison Ford as Deckard, a cop […]
TAO OF EVA: Jingle Bells
BATMAN SMELLS: Street hawker outside adult bookstore, somewhere in Tokyo, yesterday [photo by EVA LIAO] PREVIOUSLY: Shitting Pretty In Tokyo Phawker assistant editor Eva Liao is currently in Japan on an exciting journalistic-type assignment that we’d have to kill you if we told you about, etc. However, she promises to send us a little culture-shock postcard each and every day.
ADBUST: Getting Old Is Hard To Do
[Hat tip to Dantzerdaze.com] NEWSWEEK: If you’re a man of a certain age, then you spent a lot of Sunday afternoons building ramps and wearing capes and trying to be the first on the block to jump over your labrador retriever. Or maybe you spent some time in an emergency room because your banana seat bike — the one with the sparkly flag seat — almost made it from the roof of the garage to the cow pond. When it was all over and the stitches were in place and the arms set, your mom had one man to blame: Robert […]
THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST: Dave Eggers Is Comin’
The One Book, One Philadelphia Selection Committee has chosen Dave Eggers’ What Is the What to be the featured selection for this upcoming year. What Is the What tells the true story of Valentino Achak Deng, who as a child witnessed atrocities of civil warfare in Sudan and became one of the so-called Lost Boys. In order to enlighten readers and stimulate discussion dealing with both East African culture and history, as well as issues of violence in the world and within our own city, two thematically related companion books for families are also suggested: Brothers In Hope: The Story […]