DISTRICT 9 (2009, directed by Neill Blomkamp, 112 minutes, South Africa/New Zealand) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC For a genre that thrives on imagining new worlds, it is disheartening to see how derivative most modern sci-fi films are, happy to cobble together their scenarios from pieces of The Matrix, X-Files, Alien or whatever other proven blockbusters are lying around. After its cryptic ad campaign I was hoping District 9 was going to be an exception, and at least its Johannesburg slum setting is a novel location for the genre. The apartheid metaphor takes District 9 a fair distance before its […]
CINEMA: Don’t Eat The Brown Acid, Again
WOODSTOCK (Directed by Michael Wadleigh, 184 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC For the fortieth anniversary Warner Brothers has whipped up quite a promotional frenzy around the most legendary festival of the twentieth century, Woodstock. Half a million people are estimated to have attended it, the triple record set went to number one on the Billboard charts in 1970, yet what most people are really discussing when they mention Woodstock is their memories of the Oscar–winning documentary of the event, directed by Michael Wadleigh. The film was a phenomenon of its time, bringing a piece of the counter-culture to […]
CINEMA: Sweet And Sour
JULIE & JULIA (2009, directed by Nora Ephron, 123 minutes, U.S.) IN THE LOOP (2009, directed by Armando Iannucci, 106 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC When one thinks of the Nora Ephron “brand” one tends to think of those cutesy romantic comedies with the button-nosed young Meg Ryan: You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally. They each have chatty, New York flavored scripts, sweetly yearning heroines and a crippling dose of syrupy wish-fulfilling finales. Directing Meg Ryan to act cute is like chocolate syrup on chocolate ice cream, it’s too much of a good […]
RIP: Director John Hughes Dead At 59
BBC: The US film director John Hughes, who created some of the most famous comedies of the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 59. The director died after a heart attack in New York, his spokeswoman said. Mr Hughes was the director of such successful films as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. He was also a leading script writer, penning films such as Pretty in Pink and Home Alone. The spokeswoman, Michelle Bega, told Associated Press that Mr Hughes had been in Manhattan on a family visit and died after […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR In the film Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays … Paul Giamatti. And this version of Paul Giamatti is every inch what movie audiences might suspect from the actor’s most frequent screen persona: an anxious, neurotic mess. Cold Souls is set in an alternate-universe America in which souls can be put into deep-freeze to relieve their human bearers of psychological torment. Giamatti (the character) undergoes the procedure when his onstage role as Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya cripples him emotionally. He plans to restore his soul when the run ends, but then a smuggler spirits his spirit off to Russia, and […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Tyrant’s Pardon Of The Truth
FOUR DEAD, TEN WOUNDED IN PITTSBURGH FITNESS CLUB MASSACRE Police say they’ve confirmed four people were killed in a shooting at a suburban Pittsburgh health club — including the gunman — and at least 10 others were wounded. A hospital reports one other person also has died. Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt says the gunman didn’t say anything and just walked into the room where shooting occurred at the L.A. Fitness Center in Bridgeville, a community of about 5,000 residents not far from downtown Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh International Airport. Debi Wozniak, of Dormont, a suburb of Pittsburgh, is […]
CINEMA: That’s Not Funny, That’s Sick
FUNNY PEOPLE (2009, directed by Judd Apatow, 146 minutes, U.S.) SOUL POWER (2009, directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, 93 minutes, U.S.) $9.99 (2006., directed by Tatia Rosenthal, 78 minutes, Israel/Australia) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Right from the start Funny People, the third film from director Judd Apatow, seems to have a few big things working against it, number one being the aging moron comic Adam Sandler. Not just Sandler but Sandler in a cancer dramedy that clocks in at a laugh-exhausting two hours and twenty minutes. Stunt casting, ballooning lengths and again with the endless guy-hang talk; it seems as […]
TONITE: Secret Cinema
The Secret Cinema presents ISLAND OF LOST SOULS * Thursday, July 30th, 6 PM American Philosophical Society Museum Philosophical Hall 104 South Fifth Street, Philadelphia 215-440-3440 * BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Recently I was chatting with my three year old about his great passion, animals. Sometimes you forget that a fresh mind needs all angles explained to them. “We’re animals too,” I said. His eyes grew wide. “No way!” he shook his head in disbelief. I’m do not think I convinced him although he stopped challenging me after I repeated the fact a few times; he saw the gap between […]
CINEMA: Summer Lovin’
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER (2009, directed by Marc Webb, 95 minutes, U.S.) ORPHAN (2009, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, 123 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Marc Webb’s debut feature (500) Days of Summer is a breezy pop song of a movie. Not a transcendent pop song though; certainly not “There’s A Light That Never Goes Out,” the morbid and infatuated Smiths’ tune that our romantic couple first bond over when the flirty Summer overhears it on Tom’s iPod. No, the pop tune this slightly clever, mildly amusing romantic comedy more closely resembles is the one Tom turns onto a […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Writer and director Judd Apatow first became known for the cult TV series Freaks and Geeks, which gained a cult following when it aired on NBC from 1999 to 2000. Since then, the former stand-up comic has turned his attention to the big screen, directing Knocked Up and The 40-Year Old Virgin. Apatow’s latest film, Funny People, stars his former roommate Adam Sandler as a stand-up comedian with an incurable blood disorder. With one foot in the grave, Sandler’s character decides to mentor and befriend an amateur comic and deli employee played by Seth Rogen — a relationship […]
GAYDAR: The Trouble With QFest
BY AARON STELLA GAYDAR EDITOR With a snappy new name that aspires to put the the non-gay among us at ease, a fattened marketing budget, and walk-ons by gay cinema stars (Bruce Campbell, Sharon Gless, Chad Allen) and straight power brokers (hello Mayor Nutter!), QFest seems destined to please everyone — everyone, that is, except for the rank and file of Philly’s gay community. Consider these man-in-a-gay-bar responses when the topic of QFest was raised by yours truly: “I don’t bother any more. None of the shows have any substance.” “I went this year, and was more disappointed than usual.” […]
CINEMA: The Dark Side Of The Moon
MOON (2009, directed by Duncan Jones, 93 minutes, U.K.) THE HURT LOCKER (2008, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, 131 minutes, U.S.) SERAPHINE (2008, directed by Martin Provost, 121 minutes, France) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I was trying to recommend an off-the-beaten-track sci-fi film from the last few years for a friend and I was coming up blank. It struck me that nearly all sci-fi films are built to be blockbusters these days, there is no small budget sci-fi just as there is no low budget super hero films, the genre is completely given over to spectacle. This makes Moon, the […]
CINEMA: He’s Bringing ‘Sexy Time’ Back
Brüno (2009, directed by Larry Charles, 83 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I had one of my most memorable cinematic experiences in the early nineties while living in San Francisco. Some local TV obsessive had spent years videotaping his channel surfing, which he then boiled down to a 90-minute program on the grotesque extremes of the American id. He had weeping TV preachers, cackling midget wrestlers, drunken talk show guests and just when you thought you’d seen it all he would cut in some gratuitous footage of a horse mounting some brave and foolish young woman. Whenever the […]