WONDERSTRUCK (Directed by Todd Haynes, 116 minutes, USA, 2017) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC Ah, New York City. The Big Apple. The City of Dreams. The ultimate actualization of the American Dream, the place you go when you have a dream of making it — where any kid can grow up to be a star. A home to probably eight hundred languages spread across more than eight million people. A city of strangers minding their own business. A city where you could live a parallel life to someone and never know it. There have been hundreds of movies, books, songs […]
CINEMA: The Deerhunter
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER (2017, dir. by Yorgos Lanthimos, 121 min.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The world of computer generated effects has allowed filmmakers a seemingly inexhaustible ability to to create the most audacious worlds imaginable. This week’s release of the latest Thor movie is an example of a colorful multi-hued universe conjured with a level of detail unimaginable in the days when Jack Kirby was first drawing such things in the pages of Marvel comics. Yet despite these tools, the CGI universes created for the big screen are disappointingly similar, showing visions of the future […]
CINEMA: Suffer The Children
THE GUARDIAN: When the documentary An Open Secret tried to lift the lid on child abuse in Hollywood, it billed itself as “the film Hollywood doesn’t want you to see”. The marketing tagline did not exaggerate. The film died upon release in 2015. There was no theatrical release to speak of, no television deal, no video-on-demand distribution. “We got zero Hollywood offers to distribute the film. Not even one. Literally no offers for any price whatsoever,” said Gabe Hoffman, a Florida-based hedge fund manager who financed the film. It did not seem to matter that it was directed by […]
CINEMA: White Flight, White Heat
SUBURBICON (Directed by George Clooney, 104 minutes, 2017, USA) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to the simplicity and innocence of the 1950s? The postwar economy was booming: food was cheap, gas was cheap, and houses were cheap. The United States was on top of the world, justifying the excess of capitalism like never before. We were morally pure, with strong leaders, sanitized communities, and wholesome television. Kids played outside. Neighbors said hello to each other. Everyone had a job. Except, that’s not all true, is it? The fear of atomic annihilation pervaded the […]
BEING THERE: Bruce Almighty @ PFF
Photo by EVAN HUNDELT Last night Bruce Willis was in town to receive the Philadelphia Film Festival’s second annual Lumière Award, which is bestowed on “those that have demonstrated a passion for the furtherance of filmmaking as a vital artform and growing industry in Philadelphia,” according to the PFF web site. Willis has appeared in four movies shot in Philadelphia: Twelve Monkeys, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Glass — the latter three directed by M. Nigh Shamylan, who presented the award to Willis. The two are currently shooting Glass, which is the final film in a superhero trilogy that began […]
CINEMA: The Tragic Kingdom
THE FLORIDA PROJECT ( Directed by Sean Baker, 115 minutes, U.S., 2017) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC With 2015 much-discussed indie hit Tangerine (forever remembered as “the film shot on an iPhone”) audiences began to catch up with New Jersey-born writer/director Sean Baker. Tangerine’s electrified storytelling, following a pair of audacious transgender streetwalkers as they hunt for one’s cheating boyfriend along the Hollywood strip, revealed Baker to be a director who could capture a rare naturalism that obscured his savvy plotting and instinct for drama that made his films transcend mere anthropological curiosity. Tangerine seemed to come out of nowhere […]
CINEMA: First Peek @ P.T. Anderson’s New Flick
Opens December 25th! THE GUARDIAN: The first trailer for Phantom Thread, Daniel Day-Lewis’s final film before retirement, has been unveiled. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the film stars the acclaimed actor as Reynolds Woodcock, a renowned dressmaker who enters into a complex relationship with a strong-willed woman (Vicky Krieps) in 1950s post-war London. It’s the second collaboration between Day-Lewis and Anderson, following 2008’s oil-boom drama There Will Be Blood. As with that film, the music for Phantom Thread has been composed by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, who also provided the score for Anderson’s films The Master and Inherent Vice. MORE
CINEMA: Lust For Life
LOVING VINCENT (Dir. by Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, 94 min., USA, 2017) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC Vincent van Gogh is one of the most important modern artists, and one of the most enigmatic. Almost everyone has seen The Starry Night, his most iconic work. In monetary terms, his Portrait of Dr. Gachet is worth more than $82 million. There are museums, books, articles, whole careers dedicated to the study, analysis and display of his works. His use of color and form revolutionized the way artists perceive and portray the world. What is most interesting to a layman, however, […]
CINEMA: Livin’ Like A Refugee
HUMAN FLOW (Directed by Ai WeiWei, 140 minutes, Germany, 2017) BY DANIEL PATRICK WARD Human Flow director Ai WeiWei often presents the observer with a simple, yet sharp image in his art that forces us to see beyond just the physical scope of the piece itself. As a globally-renowned Chinese dissident and outspoken critic of his country’s government, he certainly fears no boundary when creating art that purposefully draws attention to the many crises affecting humanity across the globe. In Human Flow, Ai tasks himself with capturing our planet’s refugee crisis, which affects over 65 million people, in such a […]
CINEMA: Our Philadelphia Film Festival Guide
BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC The Philadelphia Film Society’s 26th annual Philadelphia Film Festival, which runs from October 19th to the 29th, is an intriguing blend of movies old and new, independent and mainstream, domestic and imported. This year the festival will honor the memory of renowned director Jonathan Demme — always a friend of Philadelphia — with screenings of the three movies he made here: Philadelphia, Beloved and Neil Young Trunk Show. On Thursday night, Bruce Willis will be on hand to accept the second annual Lumiere Award, named in honor of the first filmmakers Auguste and Louise […]
CINEMA: The Action-Minded Professor
PROF. MARSTON & THE WONDER WOMEN (Dir, by Angela Robinson, 108 min.) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC Superhero origin stories are incredibly tangled, and the excessive repetition of endless reboots often only complicates that fact. Almost every re-telling of Batman or Spiderman, to name but two, has taken the liberty of tweaking their origin to fit a particular narrative. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women tells a different sort of superhero origin story. The film answers the question of how a badass, BDSM goddess like the Golden Age Wonder Woman come about? Was it from the sick mind of a sex fiend […]
Which Blade Runner Is The Right Blade Runner?
There are seven. Yes, seven. PREVIOUSLY: Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, is without a doubt, one of the most visionary and influential science-fiction films ever created. Set in 2019 and released in 1982, Scott’s film uncannily predicted our current age some 35 years ago. While some aspects of the film’s vision of the future — flying cars, police ziggurats and android slaves known as replicants hunted down by bounty hunters known as Blade Runners once they reach their expiration date — still seem a ways off, others — the domination of humanity by a corporate technocracy, the privatization of executive and […]
CINEMA: The Clone Ranger
BLADE RUNNER (directed by Denis Villeneuve, 163 minutes, 2017, USA) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, is without a doubt, one of the most visionary and influential science-fiction films ever created. Set in 2019 and released in 1982, Scott’s film uncannily predicted our current age some 35 years ago. While some aspects of the film’s vision of the future — flying cars, police ziggurats and android slaves known as replicants hunted down by bounty hunters known as Blade Runners once they reach their expiration date — still seem a ways off, others — the domination of humanity […]