FILM FEST PICKS & PANS: Dante’s Inferno; Wicked Flowers; Book Of The Dead; Severance

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Heading into its last weekend, the 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival unleashes the big celebrity guns, giving us this year’s American Independent Award winner, Dermot Mulroney. I spent a few minutes this week trying to stoke a friend’s memory on exactly who the very recognizable Mulroney is, and finally had to give up. His specialty in nearly 20 years of film acting has been in supporting roles, often playing ingratiating nice guys who are romance-bait for the female lead. He’s worked with Altman on Kansas City, with Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding and most […]

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Bicycle Thief Steals 18K Painting, Pops Wheelie

Police are looking for an art thief who in a daring – but decidedly low-tech – daylight heist stole an $18,000 Keith Haring work from a Center City gallery, making his getaway on a bicycle in the snow. When last seen after the snatch-and-run robbery last Wednesday at the I. Brewster gallery on the 1600 block of Walnut Street, the silkscreen shoplifter was pedaling south on 16th Street, store employees in pursuit. “We were all running after him,” gallery owner Nicky Brewster said. He said the thief walked into the store about 3 p.m. on the day of the last […]

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INTERVIEW: How Devil Girl Became Mrs. Natural

BY JONATHAN VALANIA Almost everyone knows R. Crumb‘s work whether they realize it or not. Keep On Truckin‘? You’re soaking in it. Cheap Thrills? You betcha. Big butts? He invented them. Devil doll glamazons offering piggyback rides to nebbishy four-eyed horn dogs? Sweet Jesus! Giddyup! (If none of this rings a bell, you would do well by renting Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary, Crumb.) Aline Kominsky-Crumb, his wife of 35 years, is not quite the household word her husband is, but that may well change, depending on how hip the household. Aline has been cartooning as long as her husband has, […]

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COMING ATTRACTION: Mr. & Mrs. au Naturale

On Friday, look for Phawker’s exclusive interview with the R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb: Big butts, bigger boots, LSD, weird sex, piggyback rides, meeting the Beatles, leaving America, and growing up in Philadelphia…newly hired PHAWKER BOOK CRITIC Mavis Linneman‘s review of City Paper Editor Duane Swierczynski‘s The Blonde…FILM CRITIC DAN BUSKIRK‘s review of the hilarious hipster comedy of manners that is Mutual Appreciation. Plus, the new ARCADE FIRE on PHAWKER RADIO, NPR FOR THE DEAF, PhillyHistory Write-A-Caption contest, and, invariably, some wry riposte on the latest and seemingly regularly-scheduled snuffing of a human life by a gun. Damn.

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