BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC AFGHAN MUSCLES (2007, directed by Andreas Dalsgaard, 58 minutes, Denmark) Usually when I’m talking to Festival goers right after the schedule is announced, they proclaim to be unimpressed. Sure they recognize a few titles to get excited about but who’s ever heard about the rest of these films anyway? But what was that song Bo Diddley sang about books and their covers? I certainly had no clue by looking at the blurb for Afghan Muscles that it would be one of the most memorable Festival films I’ve seen so far. I’m not sure what even […]
RIP: Moses Charlton Heston Dead At 84
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84. Heston spokesman Bill Powers says the actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia was at his side. Heston revealed in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease, saying, “I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure.” With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal […]
TONITE: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
TO MY GREAT CHAGRIN: THE UNBELIEVABLE STORY OF BROTHER THEODORE (2007, directed by Jeff Sumerel, 90 minutes, U.S.) Artlessly cobbled together, TO MY GREAT CHAGRIN tells us the story behind Brother Theodore, a one-of-a-kind act who delivered intelligently insane monologues in a ranting thickly-accented voice, most memorably on the NBC version of Letterman’s late night show. Brother Theodore never broke character on stage, so it does satiate the curiosity fans might have had about just who this madman really was. His story is stranger then you might imagine; once a German playboy, the son of fashion magazine magnates, WW2 took […]
CINEMA: Philadelphia Film Festival Guidance
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC In too many ways, Philadelphia is not much of a cinema town. We have fewer screens than most cities our size, no full-time repertory theater (a fact that irks me daily) and too many foreign films just do not open here. But for a the next couple weeks, we can pretend we all live in a first-run town, as the 17th Philadelphia Film Festival spreads out across six area venues to supply more film choices than anyone can consume. The Festival has followed the same basic template since the TLA folks took it over a […]
CINEMA: Ghost Van Sant
PARANOID PARK (2007, directed by Gus Van Sant, 85 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITICEarly in Gus Van Sant’s hypnotically lulling new film Paranoid Park, the lead character Alex lets you know what you’re in for: “I’m writing this a little out of order,” his narration says, “Sorry. I didn’t do so well in creative writing, but I’ll get it all on paper eventually.” There is the slenderest thread of a detective story at the center of this skater drama, but with the endlessly dazzling camerawork by superstar cinematographer Christopher Doyle (favorite of Wong Kar Wai) and Rain Kathy […]
CINEMA: Show Trial In The Kangaroo Courthouse
THE CHICAGO 10 (2007, directed by Brett Morgen, 110 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC In 1980, radical activist Abbie Hoffman titled his autobiography “Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture.” Poor Abbie, his revolution never arrived and when he committed suicide in 1989, his Hollywood biopic was nowhere in sight. Robert Greenwald took a well-meaning yet flat-footed stab in 2000 with Steal This Movie (it’s hard to imagine that the hulking Vincent D’Onofrio was anyone’s idea of Abbie Hoffman), and now documentarian Brett (The Kid Stays In The Picture) Morgen tells the story of the 1968 Democratic National […]
CINEMA: All Fun & Games Until Somebody Gets Hurt
FUNNY GAMES (2007, directed by Michael Haneke, 107 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC “People have criticized me for making films just to provoke, That was never the case. But in this film yes. It made me happy to give an awakening kind of slap”. That’s Austrian director Michael Haneke being interviewed on the DVD of his breakthrough film, 1997’s Funny Games. Funny Games was a rigorous study of a viewer’s complicity with on-screen violence that invited the audience to watch helplessly (or not, which may be the film’s point) as a nondescript upper-class family are tortured to death […]
CINEMA: Frances McDormand Will Have Her Revenge
MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY (2008, directed by Bharat Nalluri, 92 minutes, U.K.) COVER (2008, directed by Bill Duke, 98 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Trying to resurrect the spirit of Hollywood screwball comedies decades after their era died rarely bears fruit yet a new generation of filmmakers are continually foolhardy enough to try. The screenwriters of Finding Neverland and The Full Monty (David McGee & Simon Beaufoy respectively) have dug up Winifred Watson’s 1938 novel for some authentic source material yet as fizzy entertainment Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day lacks the snap and personality needed […]
A VERY SPECIAL CONTEST: How To Win Two Tix To Watch The Wire Finale With Mayor Nutter At City Hall!
Just answer this question: Who wrote (wrote, not performs) the song that plays during The Wire‘s opening credits? Send your answers ASAP to feed@phawker.com and you could be our very lucky winner! Why? Because we love you! UPDATE: We have a winner! The response was overwhelming, thanks to everyone for playing! PREVIOUSLY: Mayor Nutter To Host City Hall Screening Of The Wire Finale FRESH AIR ON WHYY: Novelist and screenwriter Richard Price discusses his latest novel, Lush Life, which follows the repercussions of a shooting on the Lower East side. Price has written extensively about the realities of inner city […]
HIGH ROLLER: Q&A With Mob-Rocker Michael Imperioli, AKA Chris-tuh-fuh From The Sopranos
BY AMY Z. QUINN Life is, in fact, pretty sweet right now for Michael Imperioli. He’s the darkly handsome 41-year-old New York actor best known for playing Italian-American guys who meet untimely-yet-unsurprising ends, like that stutterin’ prick Spider from Goodfellas and everybody’s favorite cousin, Chrissy Moltisanti, on The Sopranos. As an actor, Imperioli has done stage work, TV (everything from Mitch Albom’s For One More Day to “The Simpsons” to “Law & Order”) and movies (including one of my own favorites, Household Saints). He and his wife, Victoria, have two kids; the couple are co-artistic directors of Studio Dante, a […]
JACK NICHOLSON: Hillary Endorsement
Wow, turns out every Jack Nicholson movie going back to China Town contains some thinly-veiled Pro-Hillary meme. And they say truth is stranger than fiction.
CINEMA: Michel Ma Belle
BE KIND REWIND (2007, directed by Michel Gondry, 101 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Named after the greatest poem ever mass-produced on a sticker (although I always preferred “Bee Kind Rewind,” with the bumble bee), Michel Gondry’s latest twee ode to hand-crafted production design shows that the French haven’t completely lost their love for their imperious little brother across the ocean. Only a Frenchman would see Passaic, New Jersey as the perfect site for a movie-lovers fantasy, a multi-ethnic post-industrial land of possibility, like Popeye’s old home of Sweet Haven. Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is the proprietor of […]
Q&A: Dancing With The Devil & Daniel Johnston
WIKIPEDIA: Daniel Dale Johnston (b. January 22, 1961) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He currently lives in a house adjacent to his parents’ home in Waller, Texas. Johnston has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is autistic.[1] His songs are often called “painfully direct,” and tend to display a blend of childlike naïveté with darker, “spooky” themes. MORE Phawker: Hi. How are you? Daniel Johnston: Good. I just woke up. And I just found a bunch of comic books I haven’t even looked at […]