TOO MUCH SEXY TIME: MPAA Slaps NC-17 On Bruno

THE WRAP: Universal’s ”Bruno,” the widely anticipated Sacha Baron Cohen docu-comedy opening in July, has been slapped with an NC-17 rating on its first submission to the Motion Picture Association of America because of numerous sexual scenes that the ratings board considers over the line, according to the studio releasing the film. Among the objectionable scenes is one in which Bruno — a gay Austrian fashionista played by Baron Cohen — appears to have anal sex with a man on camera. In another, the actor goes on a hunting trip and sneaks naked into the tent of one of the […]

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CINEMA: Our Daily Film Fest Picks

PLAGUE TOWN (2008, directed by David Gregory, 88 minutes, U.S.) Upstate Connecticut stands in for Ireland as a bickering American family playing tourist in a creepy rural town comes to wish they’d enjoyed their Guinness at home.  The game cast starts out well but it soon becomes apparent that they’re stuck screaming and running through a predictable zombie film.  The mute bride-to-be with doll eyes is a nicely spooky touch but if you’re rolling out a zombie movie at this late date you best be spinning some novel approach.  Instead Plague Town is a meal of repackaged scares even the […]

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MAURICE JARRE: Somewhere My Love

BBC: French composer Maurice Jarre, best known for his music for Hollywood films, has died in Los Angeles at 84, after suffering from cancer. Jarre, father of the composer Jean-Michel Jarre, rose to prominence relatively late in life. His breakthrough came in 1962 when he wrote the score for Lawrence of Arabia, for which he was awarded an Oscar. He won two further Oscars for Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India, and composed music for more than 150 films. MORE

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CINEPHILE: The Lowdown On The Film Fest Opening Night Party & Interview With TLA’s Thom Cardwell

BY EGINA MANACHOVA If you want the lowdown on the opening Film Fest night party on the 19th floor of the Bellevue, well,  I will be your fly on the wall. In short, you didn’t miss much. It was like hobnobbing with the not so rich and not at all famous. I exaggerate. There were some D-list celebrities there. I think. William Forsythe. I didn’t even know who he was until my friend made him feel very awkward. The catered food reminded me of being at a Bar Mitzvah. So did the middle aged white women dancing to top 40 […]

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CINEMA: Our Film Festival Picks & Pans

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC As you’re thumbing through your festival guide here’s a rundown of some of the entries screening throughout the first weekend of the Philadelphia Film Festival. Among the highlights unavailable for preview were Sam Rockwell lost like Major Tom in the ’70s sci-fi throwback Moon (opening here in June), the IRA hunger strike drama Hunger, the Philly-set cooking school doc Pressure Cooker, James Toback’s Sundance hit documentary on ear-biter Mike Tyson and the two part (of a projected three) Japanese fantasy epic 20th Century Boys.  And check back next week as we continue daily coverage of […]

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MOE, LARRY, THE CHEESE: Farrelly Brothers Lock-In Sean Penn As Larry Fine In Three Stooges Movie

VARIETY: MGM and the Farrelly brothers are closing in on their cast for “The Three Stooges.” Studio has set Sean Penn to play Larry, and negotiations are underway with Jim Carrey to play Curly, with the actor already making plans to gain 40 pounds to approximate the physical dimensions of Jerome “Curly” Howard. The studio is zeroing in on Benicio Del Toro to play Moe. The film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts. The quest by the […]

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CINEMA: Let The Fest-ing Begin!

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Barring the outbreak of more ill-timed bickering, starting tonight we should be blessed with twelve days of films from around the world courtesy of the eighteenth Philadelphia Film Festival/CineFest. Just one film is opening tonight at the Prince Theater, 500 Days of Summer, which promises to unleash the fully combined heart-breaking powers of Zooey Deschanel and The Smiths, followed by cocktails happening afterward on the 19th floor of the Park Hyatt Bellevue. On Friday the Festival turns on the faucet with screenings expanding to The Bridge, The Ritz 5, The Ritz East, The International House […]

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CINEPHILE: In Utero

Dead Ringers (Dir. by David Cronenberg, 115 minutes, USA 1988) BY EGINA MANACHOVA David Cronenberg, never one to shy away from the macabre, gives us Dead Ringers — a chilling, highly stylized psychological drama based on the novel Twins and starring Jeremy Irons as a pair of very successful, identical twin gynecologists. With a shared penchant for fine Italian furniture and smartly tailored suits, the titular twin brothers — Elliot and Beverly — manipulate each other and all those around them for their perverse, personal gain. Their approach to relationships with women is as cold and clinical as their practice […]

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CINEPHILE: O Holy Mountain

The Holy Mountain (1973 Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, 126 Minutes US, Mexico) BY EGINA MANACHOVA As the man who was once told an interviewer “I want of cinema what most of North America wants of psychedelic drugs,” director Alejandro Jodorowsky put his money where his mouth is, or rather John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s deep pockets where his talent lies, in the making of The Holy Mountain. Visually stunning and intensely symbolic, The Holy Mountain follows The Thief (who is both a Christ-like figure and The Fool) as he plays witness to the absurdities of modern life. When we first […]

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NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006

FRESH AIR Acrassicauda is an Iraqi heavy-metal band — though its members live in a one-bedroom apartment in Elizabeth, N.J. Despite their humble quarters, the band is happy to be together: When they were still based in Iraq, their practice space was bombed and they received death threats. The band first gained widespread notice in a 2007 documentary, Suroosh Alvi’s Heavy Metal in Baghdad, which followed the band in the days after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Initially hopeful, the band members watched their country crumble around them. Two years of exile in Syria and Turkey followed before the men […]

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