Nas will be kicking off a North American Fall Tour on October 2, 2014 in Rochester, NY (see below for full tour routing), in conjunction with a special screening of his documentary film, Nas: Time is Illmatic. His Tour includes a stop at Keswick Theatre on October 5 that will go on-sale this Friday, August 15 at 12PM. Each show on the tour will be a special event where the film will screen followed by Nas performing Illmatic start to finish. The film will open theatrically via Tribeca Film beginning in New York on October 1st, with a national expansion to follow. It […]

LUCY (2014, directed by Luc Besson, 89 minutes, France/U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC After Snowpiercer, here comes another foreign filmmaker showing us how to do big action right. Lucy is the latest from producer/director Luc Besson and the sci-fi actioner is a welcome return to the sort of flashy fantasy cinema he created in films like La Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional. At a fleet 89 minutes, Lucy discards franchise-building, city-leveling and unnecessary exposition, instead following the fetching figure of Lucy (movie star Scarlett Johansson) as her brainpower begins surging to unimagined heights . Who is Lucy? We […]

Artwork by TOMER HANUKA BOYHOOD (2014, directed by Richard Linklater, 166 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC It would seem impossible not to be moved by Richard Linklater’s intimate epic Boyhood, where the filmmaker took an epic leap-of-faith by committing himself and his cast to a 12-year shooting schedule. Following an entire family but especially young Mason (newcomer Ellar Coltrane), we see history not just imagined but revealed before our eyes. It’s a triumph of ambition, giving us an unusually immersive experience into those tumultuous years in which we come of age. Yet while the film is a certified […]

  SKATETOWN U.S.A. (1979, directed by William A. Levey, 98 min., U.S.) SON OF DRACULA (1974, directed by Freddie Francis, 90 min., U.K.) BLOOD (1974, directed by Andy Milligan, 69 minutes, U.S.) MURDER ON THE EMERALD SEAS (1973, directed by Alan Ormsby, 85 min., U.S.) THE SATANIST (1968, directed by Zoltan G. Spencer, 64 min., U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The Philly-based cinema curators of Exhumed Films traffic in the weird, wild and often disrespected fringes of cinema history. What started 17 years ago as a forum to present 35mm prints of the modern classics of contemporary horror has, […]

  THE GUARDIAN: North Korea has complained to the United Nations about The Interview, a forthcoming Hollywood comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, on the grounds that it promotes terrorism against the country. In the film, a TV host (Franco) and his producer (Rogen) manage to secure an interview with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea – only to find themselves hired by the CIA to assassinate him. Despite clearly being in the comic stoner-quest lineage of the pair’s films Pineapple Express and This Is The End, North Korea isn’t laughing. “To allow the production and distribution of […]

  SNOWPIERCER (2013, directed by Boon Joon-ho, 126 minutes, South Korea) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Writing about current film, I worry I spend too much time bemoaning the state of the Hollywood blockbuster, a sizable section of cinema I sometimes feel I should abandon altogether. What does summer boredom look like? Every other Joe is a super hero, every trailer reveals rebooted nostalgia and the sight of city skylines crumbling to the ground has become as old hat as cowboys dueling on a dusty Main Street. But it is hard to let the special-effects epic go. I was a […]

This looks promising. Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are twin siblings navigating an awkward reunion after a 10-year estrangement. Wiig is quirky and conflicted — big stretch, right? — and Hader is gay and bitchy-but-funny, sorta like Stefon when he goes home to Long Island for Christmas and has to put the flaming party monster persona on ice for a few days. Co-starring Luke Wilson as Wiig’s ever-patient bo-hunk love interest. Some bad ’80s dreck lip-synching required. In the hands of any other actors this premise would be insufferable. It comes out September 19th. Can’t wait to see it.

  THE IMMIGRANT (2013, directed by James Gray, 120 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Director James Gray’s new film The Immigrant has the whiff of classic to it, perhaps because watching fresh-faced lovelies fall prey to exploitation has been the stuff of great cinema since Lilian Gish first wilted for D.W. Griffith. With the gifted French actress Marion Cotillard at his disposal, Gray works up a lot of steam in this Ellis Island historical piece but he lacks the insight for character or the temperament for melodrama to make his dour little tale fire on all cylinders. Arriving […]

Looks quite promising. In theaters June 6th.

  WALL STREET JOURNAL: “Foxcatcher,” directed by Bennett Miller (“Moneyball,” “Capote”) examines the period when Du Pont invited and hosted the Schultz brothers, both Olympic gold medal wrestlers, to stay at his estate near Philadelphia and train a world-class wrestling team called “Team Foxcatcher.” Mark Ruffalo plays older brother David, and Channing Tatum is the impressionable younger brother, Mark. Miller follows the time they shared with Du Pont unflinchingly to its tragic end. MORE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: [John du Pont] looks like a shrimp compared to his powerfully built guest; he has pasty, colorless skin, a high, whiny voice and posture […]

  GODZILLA (2014, directed by Gareth Edwards, 123 minutes, U.S.) PALO ALTO (2013, directed by Gia Coppola, 100 minutes, U.S.) BLUE RUIN (2013, directed by Jeremy Salnier, 90 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC There has been bad news from Southern California in recent days. San Diego County has been hit with wildfires of a strength we’re not used to seeing so early in the fire season and don’t even get me started on the ‘firenadoes.’ Disturbing foreshadowing is also coming out of Hollywood, too, because badly misfiring summer blockbusters like Godzilla rarely arrive this early in the season […]