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CINEMA: Crime & Punishment
BY COLE NOWLIN Reaction to American Sniper — the new Clint Eastwood film starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, the deadliest marksman in American military history, with 160 confirmed kills in Iraq — has run the gamut of love and hate. Some have likened it to Quentin Tarantino’s version of Nazi propaganda, others have called it one of the “great pieces of American poetry.” People who have seen the film seem most divided by three key aspects of American Sniper: Whether Kyle was a war hero or a remorseless killing machine The historical accuracy of American Sniper’s portrayal of […]
Win Tix To See John C. Reilly & Friends @ WCL!
Photo via @AllSONGS Oh stepbrother, where art thou? Of the many hats worn by veteran entertainer John C. Reilly — actor, producer, comedian, screenwriter — perhaps his least-known/best-hat is the white felt Stetson he dons when picking and a-grinning his way through old timey American roots music with like-minded sidekicks Becky Stark and Tom Brousseau, each accomplished singer-songwriters in their own right, and upright bassist extraordinaire Sebastian Steinberg. Tonight, JCR and company will gather around the World Cafe Live campfire and deliver an unplugged set filled with eternal folk songs, classic country weepers and bluegrass standards. Becky Stark is an […]
SORRY CHARLIE: Snowmageddon & The Angry Inch
Artwork by CHARLIE C. BY CHARLIE C. I woke up yesterday morning with the towering urge to see how much snow was outside. I lunged out of my bed expecting at least a foot of snow. To my disappointment, I saw an inch. An angry inch. Some snowpocalypse! I saw on the news that we would be hit by a ‘potentially historical’ snowstorm! And we just get this little flurry! Still, I tried to make the most of it for what it was. Within the course of a second (or something like that), all my snow gear was on, and […]
ARTSY: Happy Nightmare, Baby
THE GUARDIAN: One little girl has pigtails and a Hannibal Lecter mask, another wears a bacon blindfold, while a boy has a moustache made of maggots. In Shi Mohan’s illustrated worlds, everything – even childhood – is bizarre and sinister. MORE BEAUTIFUL DECAY: There is an unnerving quality to Shi Mohan‘s paintings, as though they are capturing daydreams, complete with all the surrealness and subconscious metaphors that come with the territory. According to Art Seasons, a gallery in Singapore and Beijing that has previously shown her work, “Shi Mohan jocularly calls herself a life Illustrator. Pleasantly and sensitively, she […]
The 15 Most Disturbing Reveals About Scientology In Alex Gibney’s ‘GOING CLEAR: The Prison Of Belief’
DAILY BEAST: When he was 23, Hubbard married Margaret Louise Grubb, or Polly. To support his family, he began writing pulp fiction with tremendous speed and imagination. On New Year’s Day, 1938, he had a dental operation under gas anesthetic, and he believed the secrets of the universe were revealed to him, and he began to concentrate on writing science fiction. He also longed for fame as a screenwriter in Hollywood, but had no success despite a few attempts. “It is one thing to make that universe believable, and another to believe it. That is the difference between art […]
Cobain Doc ‘Montage Of Heck’ Wows At Sundance
Artwork by JUAN OSBORNE ROLLING STONE: We get the unfiltered Kurt experience, all disturbing sketches, poems in progress and aspirational lists. We also get a disjointed, disorienting look at fame through his eyes, seen as a jumble of shows, news reports and vapid TV interrogations that all bleed together. And we get an uncomfortably intimate look at his life with Courtney, including self-shot close-ups of the couple making out, bitching about their treatment in the press and a pregnant Love showing off her breasts. This is a couple drunk on love, and per the glossy-to-tabloid reports that Morgen sprinkles in, […]
Meet Charlie C., Our Snowmageddon Correspondent
Meet Charlie C. Like any normal 10 year old kid from Haddon Heights, he goes to school, loves his dog, likes Minecraft and leaves a mess wherever he goes. He also writes better than most adults and has keen insight into the human psyche that borders on the paranormal. If this kid can keep his head on straight, he is going places. You can check out his blog THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO CHARLIE. We’ve hired Charlie as a columnist wherein he will provide Phawker with some much-needed perspective on the world through the eyes of a 10-year-old. For his […]
EARLY WORD: The Resurrection Of Lux Interior
Lux Lives East Coast is a celebration of the life of Lux Interior, lead singer and co-founder of the genre-defining band The Cramps (1976-2009). February 4, 2015 marks the 6th anniversary of Lux Interior’s passing. Lux Lives events are an opportunity to celebrate everything “The Cramps.” Fans gather to hear the music that inspired The Cramps and to see bands that were inspired by and are covering Cramps songs. DJ Kogar the Swinging Ape will be spinning some of Lux and Ivy’s favorite records before, between and after live performances of two of Philly’s own bands, DIXY BLOOD and […]
SMUS: The Biggest Balls Of Them All!
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY I’m definitely siding with New England on this one if for no other reason than the very idea of “deflategate” is utterly stupid and outlandishly hypocritical on its face. In fact, should it turn out that the Patriots were in fact complicit, I’d support a celebratory toast to them with cups of heavily spiked Orange Pekoe! Why? Because EVERY team in the NFL CHEATS, and they do it in EVERY game they play, and contrary to this preposterous “deflategate” bullshit, that kind of CHEATING actually HAS a bearing on the outcome of games! Huh?, you […]
CINEMA: Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory
SELMA (2014, Directed by Ava DuVernay, 128 Minutes, U.S.) BY ZACHARY SHEVICH FILM CRITIC Selma opens with Martin Luther King Jr. practicing his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in the mirror, anxiously second-guessing his choice of tie. It’s a rare departure to portray the revered leader of the civil rights movement as a complex, all-too-human being no more immune than the rest of us to life’s trivialities, rather than a messianic figure delivering his people from bondage — although, in fact, he was/is both. Director Ava Duvernay (I Will Follow, Middle of Nowhere) projects a nuanced perspective of the events […]
Wanna See John Oliver @ The Tower On Friday?
Despite the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, speaking unvarnished truth about the shadowy corporate-funded shell game known as American democracy is simply not permitted on corporate-controlled broadcast media, unless your name is Jon Stewart — and even he avoids certain third rails that jump-start the dark heart of the corporate/military/police/prison industrial complex like a pacemaker of doom. There is just one other comedian/commenter who is allowed to speak truth to America’s face, John Oliver — and that’s only because he’s British, which protects him from Fox News-derived allegations of heresy in much the same way the court jester’s […]
CINEMA: Meet Messenger Of God‘s ‘Guru In Bling’
VICE: On Tuesday, Pahlaj Nihalani was appointed India’s Censor Board chief after his predecessor, Leela Samson resigned, citing “interference, coercion, and corruption.” The cause: The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal had overruled her decision to keep the movie MSG: The Messenger of God, out of theaters. MSG: The Messenger of God is a terrible name for a movie that isn’t about Moses delivering cheap Chinese food (producers, call me), but the actual issue is that the goofball protagonist of the film is a thinly veiled stand-in for the actor playing him. That actor is the so-called “Guru in Bling,” or Gurmeet […]