Vive la France! And mega-kudos to Christopher Plummer, it only took 82 years to become an overnight star and prove that good things come to those who great.
CINEMA: The Very, Very Bad Lieutenant
RAMPART (2011, directed by Oren Moverman, 108 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK I thought it was an interesting move when film producer Edward Pressman issued a second, unconnected chapter to the 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, going from Abel Ferrara directing Keitel as a corrupt cop in gentrifying New York to Warner Herzog helming a tale of pain-wracked Nick Cage in post-Katrina Louisiana. Although unaffiliated to the Bad Lieutenant films, Rampart exists for the same reason: to provide a tough star vehicle, in this case for Woody Harrelson as a loose cannon cop in post-riot Los Angeles. Surrounded by an exceptionally […]
CINEMA: The Lord Of War
CORIOLANUS (2011, directed By Ralph Fiennes, 122 minutes, U.K.) THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY (2010, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 94 minutes, Japan) BY DAN BUSKIRK British thespian Ralph Fiennes has joined together with Gladiator screenwriter John Logan for an energetic adaptation of Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare’s decidedly second-tier tragedies. This is the first English language big screen version of the tale of the titular warrior/statesman who falls from favor with his people, and while Fiennes plunders the play for modern relevance he never solves the problem inherent in Shakespeare’s original work: Coriolanus is just too despicable to rouse the sympathies […]
CINEMA: The Hipster In The Dell
Urban Farming is the topic of the timely documentary film, Urban Roots, which explores the urban farming phenomenon in Detroit, Michigan. Food grown locally in community gardens and urban farms is starting to make a positive impact for families faced with food challenge issues in Philadelphia. Drexel University will host the Philadelphia theatrical premiere of Urban Roots tomorrow night (Tuesday, February 7th) at 7:30 PM in the Bossone Research Center (3140 Market St.). After the screening, members of Philadelphia’s urban farming community and the film’s director, Mark MacInnis, will focus on Philadelphia urban farming and how to get involved. Prior […]
BEST OF CINEMA: Dan Buskirk’s Top 10 Of 2011
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Most critics get their year-end piece done before Santa’s arrival, I’m always holding out hope that I could still see a year-end contender in the final days before the New Year. I finally caught up with Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film homage The Artist on New Year’s Eve and left feeling it has been preposterously over-praised. Conceptually, I am sold on celebrating silent and black & white cinema history, but its feel for the era is so lazily inauthentic and its plot so derivative and thin that it failed to levitate my spirit, although I’ll attest […]
REWIND 2011: BEST OF Q&A: The Year In Questions And Answers
THE TESTIFIER [Illustrations by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of her recent reading at the Free Library to promote her new book Reimagining Equality: Stories Of Race, Gender And Finding A Home, we present a conversation with Anita Hill, professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University. Discussed: The fantasia of a Post-Racial America; the mendacity, narcissism and hypocrisy of Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain; the right wing’s racializing the blame for the 2008 financial crisis; how she passed the lie detector test Clarence Thomas refused to take; the emancipation of her grandfather from slavery; […]
CINEMA: Slaying The Beast
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011, directed by David Fincher, 158 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The U.S. version of Stieg Larsson’s international best-selling thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has arrived, a little more stylish and pumped up, yet containing much of the same problematic structure that dogged its previous adaptation and the source novel itself. Like the Harry Potter series, this film adaptation has ballooned to a jumbo length of more than two and a half hours to capture the many details of the novel, whether it makes for energetic storytelling or not. In […]
CINEMA: Woman Was The N*gger Of The World
FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (1969, dir. by Toshio Matsumoto, 98 minutes, U.S.) THE EMBRYO HUNTS IN SECRET (1966, dir. by K?ji Wakamatsu, 72 minutes, Japan.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Most films series are curated very systematically — movies from the same director or lead actor, etc. What makes the Rotunda’s long-running series Andrew’s Video Vault so consistently rewarding is the more intuitive pairings that are offered monthly. Although tonight’s pairing of two taboo-shattering Japanese films of the 1960s, there are both fascinating similarities and differences between these wild, wild films. Director Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses […]
CINEMA: Curious George
HUGO (2011, directed by Martin Scorsese, 127 minutes, U.S.) THE DESCENDANTS (2011, directed by Alexander Payne, 115 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK After six years, director Alexander Payne is back with his fifth feature, The Descendants. Payne has written and directed some of the most insightful American satires of the last fifteen years, including Election, Citizen Ruth, and his last film, Sideways. With this tale showing George Clooney as a Hawaiian real estate mogul who through tragedy becomes closer with his daughters, Payne seems to stumble a bit from his high perch. After she is seriously injured in a boating […]
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A MIDDLE-AGED MAN: A Q&A With Cartoonist Dan Clowes
EDITOR’S NOTE: To mark the occasion of yet another swell New Yorker cover by Mr. Clowes, we are re-running our interview with him from last spring. Enjoy. BY JONATHAN VALANIA Daniel Clowes’ 30-plus-year career as a cartoonist/graphic novelist/screenwriter has seen some remarkable reversals of fortune. Back in the mid-80s, when Clowes was fresh out of Pratt and looking to take the graphic design/illustration world by storm, he couldn’t get art directors to return his phone calls. These days, post-Ghost World, the New Yorker and The New York Times plead with him to return their calls. When not busy cranking out […]
CINEMA: The Man Who Knew Too Much
J. EDGAR (2011, directed by Clint Eastwood, 137 minutes, minutes, U.S.) MELANCHOLIA (2010, directed by Lars Von Trier, 134 minutes, Denmark) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC “Clint Eastwood directs Leonardo as Hoover”so perfectly fits the bill of holiday season prestige film, I was worried I would be able to predict, with frame by frame accuracy, the contents of the film before it unspooled. J. Edgar does have many of the expected contrivances of the historical biopic: stately direction in dark oaken rooms; sexy gossip about public figures; and the singular thrill of seeing attractive young stars covered in liver spots. […]
LIFE LESSONS: A Pep Talk For OccupyPhilly
AP TICKER: I’m getting lots of letters about why I haven’t shown my face at any of the Occupy Philly protests. I wholeheartedly, endorse and support their endeavors and while I talk a good game about revolution and overthrow of this plutocracy, the sad truth of the matter is……..I’m a very very lazy man. As I have said many times before, my favorite hobbies are as follows, lying on my couch and being very very quiet. I and my couch bound brethren, represent a subset of The Greatest Generation that I have coined “The Lazy Generation” This true silent majority […]
AUTHOR AUTHOR: First Rule About Interviewing Chuck Palahniuk Is Don’t Talk About Fight Club!
[Illustrations by ALEX FINE] BY ALEX POTTER Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk has just published his 11th novel, Damned, the first installment of a trilogy that documents a few days in the afterlife of Madison Spencer, the dearly departed daughter of a filthy rich film producer father and narcissistic movie star mother. Madison dies on her 13th birthday in a freak accident that wouldn’t be out of place in the apocalyptic imagination of Tyler Durden. Palahniuk’s luridly cinematic rendering of hell—think screenplay by Milton, based on the novel by Dante and directed by John Hughes—is littered with sticky-sweet Halloween candy […]