BY RICHARD SUPLEE GEEK SPACE CORRESPONDENT The Joker is the most known super villain of all time. You know who he is. Green hair, white face, and a cackling laugh that borders on horrifying. You’ve seen him played by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and even voiced by Mark Hamill for decades. You also probably had a friend obsessed with The Joker. That guy in college or high school who said that The Joker had a point in The Dark Knight (2008). He argued that the rules of government or school or society holds life back and The Joker was uprooting […]
TELEVISION: Last Night On Always Sunny
Everybody’s a critic. In episode 2 of the new season, the gang gets recruited for a Hollywood studio focus group re: Thunder Gun 4: Maximum Cool, the latest installment in the notoriously sexist/racist/tasteless action movie franchise. Not surprisingly, the gang LOVES the Thunder Gun movies so they jump at the chance, but are quickly horrified to learn that the dreaded “Hollywood liberal elite” has eliminated all the sexism/racism/tastelessness — basically everything that the gang thinks makes the Thunder Gun movies great — in the name of political correctness. The gang is not having it. Mac demands foreign enemies, preferably, “Eastern […]
CINEMA: Do The Hustle
HUSTLERS (Directed by Lorene Scafaria, 110 minutes, 2019, USA) BY SOPHIE BURKHOLDER Any movie that includes Jennifer Lopez pole-dancing to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” is a must-see in my mind. In this early scene of Hustlers, Lopez, who plays Ramona, lands multiple splits on her way down from the pole, sweeping piles of cash in towards her as she says, “Doesn’t money make you horny?” Ramona, a notable dancer at the Manhattan club Moves, directs her question to fellow employee Dorothy (stage named Destiny), played by an endearing Constance Wu, who soon finds herself in a mother-daughter-like friendship with Ramona. […]
IN MEMORIAM: The Devil And Daniel Johnston
Artwork by Daniel Johnston BY JON HOULON When I lived in Austin in the early 90s, Daniel Johnston hovered over the place like a ghost. He made his name there in the 80s but had since been institutionalized after clubbing a friend with a lead pipe or baptizing himself in a fountain on campus. Equally felonious, perhaps. But I didn’t know any of that back then as I puzzled over his hand-labelled cassettes in the local music section of Tower Records on Guadalupe. I couldn’t be bothered at the time. I wish I had. Like many, I found my way […]
CINEMA: The Retro Future Is Closer Than We Think
The Ornithopter by Arthur Radebaugh BY TODD KIMMEL The 90s in Old City were some wild years, but wild like riding a bucking bronco drunk while laughing maniacally and somehow magically staying in the saddle, not wild like driving someone into the Badlands to get straight. It was funny, and central to that neighborhood specific comedy was my company, Mambo Movers. Very Peter Pan and The Lost Boys with skateboards and guitars, directed by Mel Brooks and Wim Wenders. Loft spaces were shockingly cheap, and we had the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors of 312 Market for less than $500 […]
Q&A: Tigers Are Not Afraid Director Issa Lopez
Photo by Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Tigers Are Not Afraid, which hits Philadelphia theaters next week, is a stunningly phantasmagorical Mexican horror/fantasy flick about a group of children who create a morose fairytale world to help cope with/explain the murder of their parents at the hands of the bloodthirsty drug cartels. This premise of abandoned Mexican children struggling to find hope in a world without is shockingly more relevant today than it was when I originally got to see it on the festival circuit back in 2017. The highest compliment I can […]
TRAILER: The Between Two Ferns Movie
ROLLING STONE: Between Two Ferns: The Movie will feature an exhaustive list of cameos by Peter Dinklage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Rudd, Tiffany Haddish, Brie Larson, Keanu Reeves, Jon Hamm, David Letterman, Jason Schwartzman, Adam Scott, John Cho, Chance the Rapper, Rashida Jones, Hailee Steinfeld, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Tessa Thompson and more. The film is directed by Between Two Ferns co-creator Scott Aukerman from a script by Aukerman and Galifianakis. Premiers September 20th on Netflix. MORE
CINEMA: Kill Yr. Idols
THE FANATIC (Dir. by Fred Durst, 88 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC No one is more familiar with the fickle and bizarre nature of fame and fandom than Limp Bizkit’s backwards-baseball-cap-wearing bro-dawg front man Fred Durst who had the world turn on him almost as fast as it embraced him. Since his precipitous descent from rap-rock stardom Durst has since ingrained himself in Hollywood, trying his hand at acting and even hosting a weekly jazz night at a Magic Club that was inspired by La La Land. So, when I heard he was directing a film […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: You might not recognize the name of our guest Stephen Root, but chances are awfully good you’ve seen his work. He’s a character actor who’s appeared in nearly 800 TV episodes and a hundred movies and sometimes brief appearances, like one as a bank manager on “Seinfeld” or his short but memorable scenes as the sad sack office worker Milton in the film “Office Space.” He’s had several recurring roles in TV series over the years, including “The West Wing,” “NewsRadio” and “Justified.” After decades in acting, Root has earned his first Emmy nomination for his supporting role […]
CINEMA: He Who Laughs Last Laughs Best
Deep down we all knew it would take a fellow Method Actor madman to tattoo over the indelible scar Heath Ledger’s Joker left on the culture. WARNER BROS: Director Todd Phillips’ “Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught […]
INCOMING: El Camino, Bitch
The Netflix Television Event EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE reunites fans with Jesse Pinkman (Emmy-winner Aaron Paul). In the wake of his dramatic escape from captivity, Jesse must come to terms with his past in order to forge some kind of future. This gripping thriller is written and directed by Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad. The movie is produced by Mark Johnson, Melissa Bernstein, Charles Newirth, Diane Mercer and Aaron Paul, in association with Sony Pictures Television. RELATED: “Bitch!” Montage
INCOMING: Ziggy Played Guitar
PITCHFORK: The first picture of Johnny Flynn in Stardust is here. Check out the shot, taken by Paul Van Carter, above. The forthcoming, unauthorized film—which producers insist is “not a biopic”—depicts David Bowie’s life and transformation into Ziggy Stardust in the early 1970s, as he embarks on a road trip to America. MORE PREVIOUSLY: Stardust, an upcoming film about David Bowie, has cast its leading man, as Deadline and Screen International note. The role will be played by actor-musician Johnny Flynn, and he will be accompanied by Marc Maron—portraying Bowie’s publicist—and Jena Malone (The Hunger Games) as Bowie’s first wife, […]
CINEMA: Re-Born In The USA
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (Directed by Gurinder Chadha, 118 min., 2019, USA) BY JASMIN ALVAREZ Recently, director Gurinder Chadha led a Q&A in Philly to discuss her new movie Blinded By The Light (2019) and the harrowing actuality of immigrant life during the Thatcherite ‘80s that impelled her to reimagine an upbeat and unifying cinematic alternative history. The screenplay is adapted from the memoir Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion, and Rock N’ Roll, written by journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, a second-generation British-Pakistani turned Springsteen-zealot who found shelter from the racist cruelties of Thatcher-fueled xenophobia in the music of The Boss. […]