12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013, directed by Steve McQueen, 134 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Just the mention of the title 12 Years A Slave has elicited groans when brought up in conversation; either the concept is too weighty, people feel the subject has been covered or they just can’t deal with the reality of American chattel slavery. Beyond the historical guilt and other political ramifications, British director Steve McQueen’s unforgettable exploration of the plantation life is one hell of a character study and a once in a lifetime role for one of our era’s most gifted […]
CINEMA: There Will Be Blood
THE COUNSELOR (2013, directed by Ridley Scott, 117 minutes, U.S.) CARRIE (2013, directed by Kimberly Peirce, 100 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy has written his first script specifically for the big screen and it’s a corker of a film noir, generically titled, The Counselor. With a star-strewn cast including Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz, you’d expect this film to be heavily promoted, but instead The Counselor is slinking into town without press screenings like the venomous little scorpion that it is. All the elements of the classic film […]
CINEMA: Being Harry Dean Stanton
FILM WORKS: This beautiful and meditative Swiss documentary by Sophie Huber is an arty, non-chronological look at the work and philosophy of one of Hollywood’s greatest living actors (and enigmas) Harry Dean Stanton. Don’t expect to hear much else in the way of concrete biographical facts, as the star in question is pointedly vague about his background. When asked questions about what he believes or who he is, he responds humbly: “Nothing”. But as his personal assistant points out, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Having starred in over 250 films, Harry Dean is one of the hardest […]
CINEMA: America’s Original Sin
FRESH AIR: “We love being the country that freed the slaves,” says historian David Blight. But “we’re not so fond of being the country that had the biggest slave system on the planet…most Americans want their history to be essentially progressive and triumphal, they want it to be a pleasing story. And if you go back to this story, it’s not always going to please you, but it’s a story you have to work through to find your way to something more redemptive.” That’s why Blight was glad to see the new film 12 Years a Slave, an adaptation […]
CINEMA: The Farce Estate
DAVID EDELSTEIN: I gotta agree with budding film critic Julian Assange on this one: The Fifth Estate, which purports to depict the rise of the WikiLeaks founder, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and the momentous release of documents supplied by (then) Bradley Manning, is a feeble, reactionary drama. Director Bill Condon and screenwriter Josh Singer have decided to frame this as a saga of seduction and disillusionment. Daniel Berg (Daniel Bruhl) falls under the spell of Assange, exults in WikiLeaks’ cyberomnipotence, and then realizes that his charismatic leader is psychotically indifferent to the human cost of releasing government documents. (Assange won’t […]
CINEMA: It Crawled From The ’70s
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC PhilaMOCA continues to shine a light on some of the more obscure and fascinating corners of film with The Tele-Terror Fest, a five-day film festival of the TV movies of the 1970s. Presented by Exhumed Films and Cinedelphia, these 13 rare features represent some of the best-remembered thrillers of the telefilm genre, all shown from 16mm film prints. As TV gained strength as a medium, the networks began to produce their own exclusive feature length films. Among the first was a Technicolor musical version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin that was created by […]
Win Tix To See The Muscle Shoals Documentary
MUSCLE SHOALS is a documentary about a place filled with magic and music, legend and folklore, where the river is inhabited by a Native American spirit who has lured some of the greatest Rock and Roll and Soul legends of all time, and drawn from them some of the most uplifting, defiant, and important music ever created. In Muscle Shoals, Alabama, music runs through the hills, the river, and the spirit of the people. It is a place where, even before the Civil Rights Movement really took shape, the color of your skin didn’t matter inside the studio. At […]
CINEMA: In Space Nobody Can Hear You Scream
GRAVITY (2013, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, 90 minutes, U.S.) WADJDA (2012, directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, 98 minutes, Saudi Arabia) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I’ve been met with nothing but skepticism when I tell folks the next must-see film is a sci-fi epic starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. I can’t blame them; with that spare description, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity sounds like Hollywood business as usual, which is exactly what this downright thrilling adventure is not. For at least the last decade, Hollywood blockbusters have smashed up cities and flexed super powers like clockwork, but here is a special […]
BEING THERE: Two Door Cinema Club @ The Tower
Photo by ALEXANDER BISIGNARO I’m never sure what to expect at a show when the band performing is still in its proverbial “early years.” Are they only going to play material from their successful debut album? Will the venue be crowded or awkwardly empty? How many songs am I going to actually recognize? These are the questions I was asking myself as I walked through the doors of Tower Theatre last night to see Two Door Cinema Club kick start their latest U.S. tour. After releasing Tourist History in 2010 and following it up with Beacon in 2012, Two Door […]
CINEMA: Trailer For Dubious New Spike Jonze Film
Joaquin Phoenix with a NAMBLA mustache falls in love with SIRI, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Soundtrack by Arcade Fire. If this wasn’t directed by Spike Jonze, this would have lost us at ‘Joaquin Phoenix with a NAMBLA mustache.’
CINEMA: Remote Viewing
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Exhumed Film is bringing an offbeat, forgotten gem to the big screen at International House this Tuesday, Jeff Lieberman’s 1988 sci-fi/action spoof Remote Control, with the writer/director on hand for post-screening Q&A. Remote Control is centered around two high school video clerks, Cosmo (Kevin Dillon of Entourage and the The Blob remake) and Georgie (Christopher Wynne, perhaps you remember him from the Johnny Depp sex comedy Private Resort?) who work at the busy video store, Village Video. A mysterious promotional stand-up has arrived for a video called “Remote Control,” a VHS tape whose hypnotic […]
CINEMA: Trayvon Station
FRUITVALE STATION (2013, directed by Ryan Coogler, 90 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Fruitvale Station is a true tear-jerker, a genre somewhat disreputable among male film critics (no big surprise) because bypassing the intellectual and heading straight to the emotional is seen as a dirty trick for a film to do to a guy. If Fruitvale Station is particularly successful in milking its viewers’ emotions, it may be because the American public has been slow to show empathy for the violence that been prejudicially doled out by law enforcement against African Americans and people of color in the […]
CINEMA: Summer Of The Blockbummer
PACIFIC RIM (2013, directed by Guillermo del Toro, 132 minutes, U.S.) THE LONE RANGER (2013, directed by Gore Verbinski, 149 minutes, U.S.) MAN OF STEEL (2013, directed by Zack Snyder, 143 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC There is a cultural belief that often goes unexamined that says the quality of the arts in this country is a constant: bad songs were always on the radio, TV has always been stupid and Hollywood has always made big budget fluff. It’s a naive viewpoint, history shows that art thrives and wilts according to all sorts of economic and cultural pressures. […]