PERSEPOLIS (2007, directed by Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, 96 minutes, France) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The new animated film from France, Persepolis takes its name from the bygone capitol of what is now Iran. It’s a fitting title for this engrossing coming-of-age story, throwing its heroine into the tides of history with its story of a modern young woman searching for her place among an ancient culture. Animated in an uncluttered black and white style, Persepolis rescues what could be a sentimental, time-worn tale by presenting a complicated cross-cultural journey riddled with blasts of Western Pop adrenaline. Prepare […]
Q&A: 12 Useful Facts About Juno‘s Kimya Dawson
[As told to JONATHAN VALANIA/Illustration by ALEX FINE] 1. Kimya Malaika Dawson‘s name means ‘Quiet Angel’ in Swahili. She is not, however, Swahili. It was all her parents idea. Obviously. 2. Miss Dawson’s 18-month-old daughter is named Panda Delilah Dawson. “There was no second choice, it was certain from the beginning that it was gonna be ‘Panda Delilah’ whether it was a boy or a girl,” says Miss Dawson, explaining that Tom Jones was playing when she went into labor. Not in concert, on the stereo. Obviously. 3. All of Miss Dawson’s songs on the Juno soundtrack were originally written […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
ATTACK A TASTE OF THE CLONES: FDA Approves Franken-Meat For Humans WASHINGTON – Meat and milk from cloned animals is as safe as that from their counterparts bred the old-fashioned way, the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday, but sales still won’t begin right away. “Meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones are as safe as food we eat every day,” said Dr. Stephen Sundloff, FDA’s food safety chief. Regardless, it still will be years before many foods from cloned animals reach store shelves, for economic reasons: At $10,000 to $20,000 per animal, they’re a lot more expensive […]
I’M NOT THERE: Best Golden Globes EVER!
ASSOCIATED PRESS: BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Cate Blanchett won the supporting actress Golden Globe on Sunday for the Bob Dylan tale “I’m Not There” during an awards show truncated from glitzy banquet to dry news conference because of the Hollywood writers strike. Marion Cotillard won for best actress in a musical or comedy for a remarkable personification of singer Edith Piaf in “La Vie En Rose,” playing the French icon from youth through middle age and into her ailing final years.Javier Bardem won for supporting actor in “No Country for Old Men,” playing a merciless killer tracking a fortune […]
CINEMA: The Twilight’s Last Gleaming
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Acclaimed experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs (named by the Whitney Museum as one of the one hundred greatest artists of the twentieth century) delivers his life’s work with the nearly-fifty-years-in-the-making masterpiece Star Spangled To Death. No wonder the movie’s running time is an elephantine six hours-plus. Think of it as Picasso’s La Guernica come to life, with laughs added. Nearly fifty years in the making, Star Spangled To Death sums up everything that fascinates and distresses the filmmaker. Sifting through the cinematic junkyard of the last century to display a delirious melange of ham-fisted political propaganda, […]
REWIND 2007: THE YEAR IN CINEMA
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC It isn’t often that I reach out for a sports analogy, but the 2007 film season seems have lacked a very deep bench, particularly here in the Philly market. Procrastinating on submitting that “authoritative” Top Ten of 2007 list has allowed me to gaze over a number of critic’s year-end lists, and it is distressing how similar the lists read. There are two or three on my list that seem to be on almost everyone’s list as well as another small handful of other titles (There Will Be Blood, Juno, Sweeney Todd, Away from Her, […]
CINEMA: Blood Brothers
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, 158 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK, FILM CRITIC Like a booby-trap designed to ensnare film buffs with the evanescent bait of familiarity, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film references so many iconic American classics that it takes on the momentum of one of those zingy montages they use on the Turner Classic Movie channel. Playing like a Tarantino film with more prestigious references, There Will Be Blood rarely lets a scene go by without nodding to John Ford, Orson Welles, or John Huston (he even shot the darn thing in the […]
RECONSIDER THIS: Barbarella Turns 40
BY MATTHEW DADDONA When director Robert Rodriguez announced in May of 2007 that he would take on Roger Vadim’s 1963 cult sci-fi classic Barbarella, the rumors about who would play the title role circled the globe faster than an orbiting satellite. Jessica Biel, Rose McGowan, Lindsay Lohan and even Beyonce Knowles were all attached, or rumored to be attached, at some point. Barbarella turns 40 in 2008, and since 40 is the new 30, she’s holding up pretty well, not that anyone ever expected more from her than a few stoned laughs and a half-dozen hard-ons. Luckily for us, Rodriguez […]
MASH-UP: Winnie The Pooh/Apocalypse Now
Most excellent.
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
CLARIFICATION: Adolf Hitler NOT ‘Good,’ Says Will Smith LOS ANGELES — Will Smith is angry over celebrity gossip Web site articles that he said misinterpreted a recent remark he made in a Scottish newspaper about Adolf Hitler. In a story published Saturday in the Daily Record, Smith was quoted saying: “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good.’” The quote was preceded by the writer’s observation: “Remarkably, […]
CINEMA: Royal Tannenbaums
THE DIVING BELL & THE BUTTERFLY (2007, directed by Julian Schnabel, 112 minutes, France/U.S.) WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (2007, directed by Jake Kasdan, 96 minutes, U.S.) THE SAVAGES (2007, directed by Tamara Jenkins, 113 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Who can forget the Phawker episode a few months back when our editor/provocateur ruffled academic feathers by opining that the journalism majors should study something/anything else and then bring that speciality into their journalistic interests? Outrage and hilarity ensued. Too bad we couldn’t get our fearless editor’s act booked into the country’s film schools because they’re aching […]
RECONSIDER THIS: Blade Runner Turns 25
BY MATTHEW DADDONA It is a curious symptom of our modern digital world — where the DNA of art can be easily transposed, transported or transformed with the click of a mouse, a process that used to take years and a cast of thousands in the analog age — that the basic premise of a landmark film can be altered in the director’s cut DVD version twenty years after the fact. This is literally rewriting, or more accurately re-editing, history. Prior to its initial theatrical release back in 1982, Warner Bros studio execs were so convinced that audiences wouldn’t be […]