ANDREW’S VIDEO VAULT @ The Rotunda 4014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PAThursday November 13th 2008  8PM Free! THE MAN (1972, directed by Joesph Sargent, 93 minutes, U.S.) HAIL (1973, directed by Fred Levinson, 88 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Thirty-six years ago, it took the mind of Twilight Zone-creator Rod Serling to imagine the audacious history we’re now living.  His 1972 script for The Man tells the story of the first African American President of the U.S. and there could be no more timely booking for this obscurity’s reappearance than tonight on a Presidential double-bill at Andrew’s Video Vault. […]

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008, directed by Charlie Kaufman, 124 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Even though I’m all for expanding the vocabulary of the American public, Synecdoche, New York has got to be the most alienating title for a film since the Coen Brothers’ Hudsucker Proxy. For the record, “synecdoche” (rhymes with Schenectady, pronounced “si-nek-duh-kee”) is defined as “a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as ‘hand’ for sailor), or the whole for a part (as ‘the law’ for police officer)”. It’s an obscure word for a difficult-to-grasp concept but screenwriter Charlie […]

ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO (2008, directed by Kevin Smith, 102 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The disappointment of director Kevin Smith’s latest film isn’t so much that it isn’t very sexy, or is only sporadically amusing or even that his ability to stage a scene remains stubbornly amateurish. What lets you down is that the title characters, played by the ingratiating slob Seth Rogen and the bubbly Elizabeth Banks, don’t have the shameless guts to actually let it all hang out in a porn film. Smith wants to titillate us with that great title yet his […]

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (2008, directed by Jonathan Demme, 113 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC It is odd to see a director of the stature of Jonathan Demme fumbling around as awkwardly as he does in his latest film, Rachel Getting Married. Before the phenomenon of his Silence of the Lambs, Demme was known for creating quirky and well-observed characters as well as demonstrating a pulpy sense of excitement carried over from his years of making b-movies with Roger Corman. Since Lambs, Demme’s films have become increasingly turgid and self-important (like his two Philly-lensed pictures, Beloved and Philadelphia), so […]

FRESH AIR Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaption) is known for his disjointed narratives and quirky characters. Now he brings that off-beat sensibility to his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. The film features Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director who builds a life-size model of Manhattan’s theater district in a warehouse in upstate New York. As Hoffman’s character becomes increasingly obsessed with his mock-up of Manhattan reality, he starts to lose control of his own. ALSO, Once best known as a star of action and Western films, actor (and former mayor of Carmel, California) Clint Eastwood is also […]

WIKIPEDIA: Entering the 21st century, director Quentin Tarantino had been penning several scripts, including one for the World War II adventure film Inglorious Bastards. Tarantino described the premise in October 2001, “[It’s] my bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission film. [It’s] my Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare or Guns of Navarone kind of thing.”[5] The premise had begun as a Western and evolved into a World War II version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly set in Nazi-occupied France. The story changed to be about two maverick units from the United States Army that had “a habit of scalping Germans” before changing […]

W. (2008, directed by Oliver Stone, 129 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Oliver Stone’s celebrity has eclipsed his own work in recent years, but with his latest, the biopic about our sitting President entitled W., Stone has succeeded in capturing the public imagination in a manner that he hasn’t since 1991’s J.F.K.  As his popularity hovers towards record lows, much of America seems to be salivating for The Decider to get his comeuppance. With what is perhaps the most controlled and entertaining film of his career, Stone surprises by delivering a film that is not a partisan smear; […]

BODY OF LIES (2008, directed by Ridley Scott, 128 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Starting with a minor quibble, what is up with the title of this latest action thriller from director Ridley Scott, Body of Lies? While Leonardo DiCaprio plays a wily C.I.A. agent gallivanting around the Middle East on the hunt for terrorists, the plot never pivots around bodies, lies nor a body of lies. It is as if Warner Brothers used a title generating computer program to spit out vaguely legalistic titles and viola, “Body of Lies” was spit out.  All who agreed said “Aye”. […]