FILM FEST WEEKEND PREVIEW: ARTFAG KUNG-FU; UNSPEAKABLE SISTER ACTS; LARS VON TRIER

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC It’s the opening weekend of the 16th annual Philadelphia Film Festival and we’re sitting on the ass end of winter, so no one has to feel bad about being inside, in the dark, on a perfectly beautiful day. Surely you have many more sunny days in Rittenhouse Square in your future, but when will you get another chance to watch silent Our Gang shorts with Leonard Maltin? While Maltin’s taste in contemporary film can be a bit prim, his love of early Hollywood animation and the world of comic shorts better reveal his importance as […]

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HOLLA: At The Film Fest Opening Night Partay

  BY JAMES DOOLITTLE In nonchalantly telling my spouse that the reason I showered yesterday for the first time in two days was to attend the opening gala for this year’s Philly Film Fest, her question of “where” produced another, even more obvious question: Why was the Film Society holding this year’s fest at a strip club. In and of itself, an honest query, but a quick review of the Penthouse Lounge & Grille‘s website reveals a stated attempt to provide Philadelphia with “an upscale concept restaurant”, which based on last night’s shindig means a tray of coconut shrimp is […]

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THIS JUST IN: NEW TWIST IN PW SALE SAGA

PW’s Steve Volk is reporting that the sale of PW to Village Voice Media (AKA New Times) is NOT the done deal Philebrity has been reporting, and reveals yet another apparent bidder: In a story published on Tuesday evening, a local blog reported that PW had already been sold to Village Voice Media (VVM), a Phoenix-based chain of alternative newsweeklies. That report now appears to be erroneous, and the bidding is ongoing. PW: Get Back Jo Jo

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All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping

Sharon Pinkerson & Paul Rudd, Film Fest Opening Night Party, Penthouse Club [Photo & FLICKR by JONATHAN VALANIA] Brian Fantana: [about Veronica] I’ll give this little cookie an hour before we’re doing the no-pants dance. Time to musk up. [opens cologne cabinet] Ron Burgundy: Wow. Never ceases to amaze me. What cologne you gonna go with? London Gentleman, or wait. No, no, no. Hold on. Blackbeard’s Delight. Brian Fantana: No, she gets a special cologne… It’s called Sex Panther by Odeon. It’s illegal in nine countries… Yep, it’s made with bits of real panther, so you know it’s good. Ron […]

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Write Clever Caption, Win Tix To See The English Beat!

The City of Philadelphia’s photo archive contains over 2 million images that date back as far as the late 1800s, i.e. the last time a Republican won in this town. In all seriousness, this is an INCREDIBLE visual record of the city’s evolution and a relatively new web site, PhillyHistory.org, is making it available for online consumption and purchase. To date, some 22,000 images have been digitally scanned, at a rate of roughly 2,000 images a month. So, if you’ve been wondering why the line at Kinko’s is so goddamned SLOW, well, now you know. Phawker will be showcasing images […]

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TODAY I SAW…

  BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, […]

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FILM FEST PREVIEW: Calling All Cinephiles!

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC For the next two weeks, Philadelphia film-goers can pretend we live in Manhattan, as our viewing choices multiply exponentially as the Philadelphia Film Festival unreels its 16th season. Since no one really gets to see all of the festival’s nearly 300 films, the best a film fan can do is throw arms around this elephant (said to now be the largest festival on the East Coast) and decide how the festival feels. But don’t grope the sensitive areas, an elephant is big and can hurt you — and they never forget. I’ve seen about 30 […]

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DEVO, Even Better Than The Real Thing

BY ED KING, ROCKIST The great thing about Devo was that you didn’t have to listen to their music to love them. Their appearance on Saturday Night Live, where they performed “Satisfaction” and “Jocko Homo” [see below] — complete with robotic choreography, the Booji Boy routine, the yellow HazMat jumpsuits, and a fuzz box mounted directly on one of the guitar players’ guitar — was the atom bomb of the rock ‘n roll age as we knew it. With that appearance, the release of their debut album, and their spectacular, absurd videos, they were the first shots fired in the […]

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