BUG (2006, directed by William Friedkin, 102 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC With monster sequels from blockbuster franchises gobbling up the majority of megaplex screens at the kick-off of the summer season, Lionsgate is doing some crazy counter-programming by attempting to pass off William Friedkin’s adaption of the Tracy Lett’s stage hit Bug as a Saw-like horror film for the blood-drunk masses. While this slow-building, claustrophobic psychological thriller ultimately ascends to a climax as gruesomely horrific as Requiem For A Dream’s, Bug would have likely found a more accepting audience in the art-house circuit rather than being booked […]
THIS YOU MUST SEE: El Topo + Holy Mountain
[Artwork by JENNIFER LUI] BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Years ago I went to a party where esteemed film critic David Thomson was scheduled to attend. Before his arrival the host announced “He’s a fascinating guy, but he doesn’t want to talk to anyone about film.” “Send him home,” I remember thinking to myself. It’s like attending a party with Red Barber and not being about to bring up the subject of baseball. Since I’ve been writing about film for a few years now I see his point. Being introduced as a film critics is a conversation starter that doesn’t […]
TONITE: Secret Cinema Under The Stars
On Tuesday, May 22, the Secret Cinema will present the historic drama Magnificent Doll at a very historic site — the cobblestone and ivy courtyard of the Morris House Hotel, built in 1787 as the luxury home of one of the Revolutionary era’s most celebrated families. This very special event will include dinner and a movie, and proceeds benefit The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. The film to be shown is a little-seen biopic from Hollywood’s golden age, Magnificent Doll, starring Ginger Rogers as feisty first lady (and latter-day ice cream icon) Dolly Madison. Co-starring are David Niven and Burgess […]
CINEMA: Silencer Of The Lambs
KILLER OF SHEEP (1977, directed by Charles Burnett, 83 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITC We take it for granted that most films that play theatrically will follow an orderly path to DVD but my troubled subconscious does contain a list of films that I worry may never again be seen. Will we ever again got the chance to ogle Jenny Agutter in Monte Hellman’s 1978 sex-driven western China 9 Liberty 37? Will the world ever get a chance to gasp at Joel DeMott’s documentary Seventeen, an unspeakably perverse journey into the world of good-for-nothing dope smoking teens in […]
REVIEW: The Wind That Shakes The Barley/28 Weeks
THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (2006, directed by Ken Loach, 127 minutes, U.K.) 28 WEEKS LATER (2007, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 99 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I was about 14 years old when I finally stopped going down to the newsstand to pick up my weekly batch of superhero comics, and aside from a few exceptions for work by Frank Miller or Alan Moore, I’ve never looked back. I’m told there is still some imaginative writing still going on in comics, and I’m not saying my fantasies today are any more mature, but the dream […]
CINEMA: Exhumed Films
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC It struck me during the first five minutes of the recent Tarentino/Rodriguez collaboration that the Weinsteins spent 50 million dollars to conjure the magic that Exhumed Films brings to Philly every month. The insane trailers, worn film prints, seventies-era lava lamp-like Coming Attractions announcements and of course the perverse genre films that Grindhouse professed to celebrate, have all been the stock-in-trade of the Exhumed Films collective which has exhibiting genre film favorites and oddities for nearly ten years now. Tarentino and Rodriguez can labor mightily to capture the off-handed weirdness of independently-shot films from the […]
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Saving Private Lynch
This is pretty fascinating — not just for the rescue but for how completely and, given the circumstances, cinematically it was documented. Where Psy-Ops ends and P.R. begins, or vice versa. Either way, she was just a broken pawn in a shady game. And lucky for her, all the king’s horsemen and all the king’s men could put Private Lynch back together again.
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EARLY WORD: My Fleeting House
Tim Buckley was an experimental vocalist and performer who incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, and avant-garde rock in a short career spanning the late 1960s and early 1970s. He often regarded his voice as an instrument, a talent most exploited on his albums Goodbye and Hello, Lorca, and Starsailor. He was the father of musician and singer Jeff Buckley, also known for his three-and-a-half octave voice, who died in 1997. Buckley released his debut album Tim Buckley on Elektra in 1966. A folk-rock album, it contained psychedelic melodies written with input from Beckett. He went on to release Goodbye and […]
FILMFEST PICKS: End Of The Line; Woman On The Beach; Life & Lyrics; Dead Daughters; The Kovac Box
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC With the end of the second and last weekend of the Philadelphia Film Festival, I head into the last few days of screenings with that feeling of having finished a wonderful meal but still wanting to stretch and make room for dessert. I caught some pretty choice films this past weekend. I became addicted to the Black Lizard reprints of David Goodis’ pulp fiction novels in the late ’80s and have waited nearly 20 years to see the film he scripted and which was shot in his hometown of Philly, the 1957 film noir The […]
FILM FEST PICKS & PANS: Dante’s Inferno; Wicked Flowers; Book Of The Dead; Severance
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Heading into its last weekend, the 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival unleashes the big celebrity guns, giving us this year’s American Independent Award winner, Dermot Mulroney. I spent a few minutes this week trying to stoke a friend’s memory on exactly who the very recognizable Mulroney is, and finally had to give up. His specialty in nearly 20 years of film acting has been in supporting roles, often playing ingratiating nice guys who are romance-bait for the female lead. He’s worked with Altman on Kansas City, with Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding and most […]