THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST (2009, directed by Daniel Alfredson, 147 minutes Sweden) FOUR LIONS (2009, directed by Chris Morris, 97 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I was a little disappointed that the title of this third film from the best selling Stieg Larsson novels was only metaphoric. In the first part, hacker and violent avenger Lisbeth Salander really showed her dragon tattoo and in the second half she actually played with fire (engulfing her abusive daddy in flames). Here, I was hoping for some Wily Coyote-style action where Lisbeth made one of her many attackers […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Wolf Parade @ The Troc
[Illustration by KAGAN McLEOD] BY PELLE GUNTHER Wolf Parade has long been known for heavy indie rock dirges covered in wild synth leads and a live show does not disappoint. On top of that Spencer Krug’s wailing vibrato is just as bizarre and captivating in person, all pining and heartbreak mixed with a strange sense of hope. Unfortunately, when Krug took a break from screaming his vocals, Dan Boeckner filled in with his much less distinctive voice, which didn’t carry the same emotional pull that Krug had captivated me with. The band focused much of their set on new music […]
RICH MAN POOR MAN: Mo’ Money, Mo’ Republican
[click to enlarge] RELATED: Despite what you are hearing about Tea Party Populism and hopping mad Main Streeters, one thing is indisputable. The more money you make, the more likely you were to cast a ballot for Republicans in the 2010 elections. The GOP was swept into office by a green tide of affluence. MORE RELATED: Who was the big winner in this week’s midterm election? The Republican Party? No. Former half-term Governor Sarah Palin? Not hardly. Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner? Nope. The Tea Party movement? Think again. Tuesday night’s big winner was undoubtedly Fox News. It did more than just […]
EXILE IN GUYVILLE: Liz Phair Reviews Keith Richard’s Life For The New York Times
[Illustration by Enkeling] NEW YORK TIMES: As their popularity grows, so does their stardust. “Suddenly we were being courted by half the aristocracy, the younger scions, the heirs to some ancient pile, the Ormsby-Gores, the Tennants, the whole lot. I’ve never known if they were slumming or we were snobbing.” It’s a blue-collar fairy tale, but distance between Mick and Keith begins to steadily expand — so much so, Keith confesses, that “I haven’t gone to his dressing room in, I don’t think, 20 years.” The Glimmer Twins, once so close Keith claims they had “identical taste in music,” now […]
EXILES ON SOUTH STREET: How It Got Its Mojo On
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE CITY PAPER Forty years ago, South Street was doomed, left for dead by city planners who had scheduled the street for demolition to make way for a proposed Crosstown Expressway that would connect I-95 to I-76. South Street then was nothing like South Street now — a funky post-hippie/post-punk/post-cool amalgam of shops, bars and fooderies, aka Philly’s Haight-Ashbury, a land-locked asphalt boardwalk where teenagers from across the tri-state area flock to see and be seen (and stage the occasional flash mob). Back then, South Street was hardly a jewel in the city’s crown; in fact, […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] FRESH AIR Before a prostitution scandal ended his political career, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was a crusading prosecutor known as the “Sheriff of Wall Street.” As New York’s attorney general, he targeted corruption and shady business practices at some of the biggest financial institutions in the country. Filmmaker Alex Gibney’s new documentary, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, suggests that Spitzer’s demise wasn’t just about sex — that the many enemies Spitzer made on Wall Street and in the New York state capital at Albany may have contributed to his political demise. […]
MUST SEE TV: Abandoned Six Flags New Orleans Tour
Powerful stuff. Haunting, sad, metaphorical, etc.
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. 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 […]
CITY CONTROLLER: Missing $164 Million In Real Estate Taxes Is Possibly Missing
MY FOX PHILADELPHIA: A spokesman for Controller Alan Butkovitz says officials are trying to confirm if the city received the money from title companies, but can’t say if it’s missing or not. Philadelphia’s controller says city officials haven’t been able to confirm if $164 million in real estate taxes have been transferred electronically to the city over the past five years. MORE ALSO: Police said the teens, ages 15 and 16, admitted to them that they put the cat in the microwave, turned it on and then threw it out a third story window of a Juniata home. The cat […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR In a recent profile of Boehner, Vanity Fair‘s national editor Todd Purdum wrote that [John] Boehner “was among the architects of the strategy by Republicans in both houses to resist the president at every turn, regardless of whether they thought his proposals made sense or might be good for the country.” Now that Boehner is poised to become the next speaker of the House, Purdum tells Terry Gross that the 10-term Ohio Rep. is likely to run the place with a less obstructionist hand. “I think what he did [during the last term] was hold together an unruly […]
TECHNO: Where Your iPhone Comes From, And What It’s Like To Live And Die There
GIZMODO: I traveled to China to report on Foxconn and Shenzhen as part of a special feature for WIRED, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the magazine. In the meantime, here’s a small glimpse of some of the things I saw while in Shenzhen. Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen, China, is home to about half of its 420,000 workers. They make many of our gadgets and computers, then walk to dormitories on the 2.1-kilometer-square campus. I got to look inside. [Above] A dorm room. Eight workers sleep in four bunk beds in a room about the size of […]
BOMBSHELL: Bruce Wayne Admits He IS Batman!
MYFOXPHILLY: The admission is unveiled Wednesday in the final pages of “Batman and Robin” No. 16 that marks the last issue in a run by Scottish writer Grant Morrison. The acknowledgment in the final pages comes as Wayne holds a news conference where he asks those gathered: “Some of you may have wondered … how does a man like Batman afford to constantly update his crime-fighting technology? Where does his money come from? “Well, the answer is me.” MORE
STAMPEDE: America Gets The America It Deserves
NEW YORK TIMES: Republicans won control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, riding a powerful wave of voter discontent as they dealt a setback to President Obama two years after his triumphal victory. And while the G.O.P. made strong gains in the Senate, Democrats were positioned to maintain their control of that chamber. Democrats were dealt significant losses, particularly in the House, where Republicans recorded a series of wins from New Hampshire to Virginia and Indiana to Florida, knocking out well-established incumbents and freshmen alike, all of whom struggled to overcome opposition to the Democratic Party’s agenda. Representative John […]