THE DAILY BEAST: One of the most hotly anticipated films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, running from May 15-26 in the south of France, is Only God Forgives. The crime-thriller reteams Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn with his star, Ryan Gosling, and is Gosling’s last film before his self-imposed hiatus from acting. Gosling plays Julian, an American running a Muy Thai boxing club in Bankok, Thailand, that’s a front for a drug-smuggling operation. When his brother, Billy (Tom Burke), is killed in an act of revenge after murdering an underage prostitute, the two boys’ mother, Crystal (Kristin Scott […]
CINEMA: Inside Inside Llewyn Davis
THE GUARDIAN: Inside Llewyn Davis is set in 1961 in New York, amid the folk-revival scene from which Bob Dylan would emerge. But this is not a story about the singer-songwriter, whom Ethan Coen called “the elephant in the room” of the film. The story, inspired by the memoir of folk singer Dave Van Ronk, instead takes as its main character a struggling artist teetering between success and failure, who would later be eclipsed by what its star, Oscar Isaac, described as “the poet, the abstract thinker” that Dylan became. It is about, said Joel Coen, “the lesser-known scene […]
DOWNLOAD: Free David Byrne/St. Vincent EP
EDITOR’S NOTE: The ‘free’ store seems to be down right now, so check back later. DAVID BYRNE: After the release of Love This Giant last year, we did a tour of North America and Australia that was like nothing we’ve ever done before—drums, keys and Annie and I supported by 8 choreographed brass players. We did the new material, but also a lot of recognizable songs, arranged for that group. The sound is incredible, and it’s a bit of a visual spectacle as well. We were pretty excited at how it turned out. The critical and audience response was great […]
WORTH REPEATING: How To Legalize Marijuana
NEW YORK TIMES: One practical challenge facing the legalization pioneers is how to keep the marijuana market from being swallowed by a few big profiteers — the pot equivalent of Big Tobacco, or even the actual tobacco industry — a powerful oligopoly with every incentive to turn us into a nation of stoners. There is nothing inherently evil about the profit motive, but there is evidence that pot dealers, like purveyors of alcohol, get the bulk of their profit from those who use the product to excess. “When you get a for-profit producer or distributor industry going, their incentives […]
CINEMA: Girl Interrupted
FRANCES HA (2012, directed by Noah Baumbach, 85 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The comic character studies of writer/director Noah Baumbach are steeped in cynicism and despair, hashing out the dark realities of family, love, and life in general, so it is a surprise that his latest film radiates love from nearly every frame. That love is for the star and co-writer Greta Gerwig and Baumbach’s latest, Frances Ha is a sad sack comic valentine to the off-balance appeal of the daffy Ms. Gerwig. It’s tempting to oversell this poignant little slice of almost nothing but its delicate […]
Kanye To Beam “New Slaves” Across Philly Skyline
Have to say, we long ago gave up on Ye, thinking his shameless blingfoolery and relentless attention-whoring was making his ego’s ass look ginormous and insufferably baby-mannish. When he went full retardashian we were done. But his stunning performance last week on the season finale of SNL made us re-think the dismissal. Now comes word he will be beaming the video for the new single “New Slaves” across three buildings around Philly between 10-11 pm tonight (Eastern State Penitentiary, Franklin Institute and the Barnes Foundation) as part of a global promotional campaign where all the world’s buildings are a screen.
WORTH REPEATING: Twilight Of A Page Six Man
PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: I have always been interested in celebrities. I grew up reading my mom’s People magazines; in high school, a friend and I published a punk fanzine called Scenester! I got my picture taken with singer Brandy at my prom. (She was the date of my classmate, one Kobe Bryant.) In college, I published a magazine called Deal With It and profiled Todd Bridges of Diff’rent Strokes; I tried to interview Anthony Michael Hall of Breakfast Club fame, but he demanded to be paid and we ended up arguing over it. I ran the transcript of him being […]
Urban Outfitters Investors Duly Unimpressed With Plan To Diversify All-White/All-Male Board Of Directors By Adding Owner’s All-White Wife
INQUIRER: The state treasurer of Connecticut called Urban Outfitters’ proposal to add CEO Richard Hayne’s wife Margaret Hayne to its all-male board “cynical,” an “insult” and “bogus,” according to a statement by the New York and Connecticut state pension funds, the Catholic Sisters of Mercy’s investment arm, and the Calvert and Portico investment funds, who are pressing the company to add women to its board. “While Margaret Hayne certainly has the qualifications and experience to represent women’s interests, she unfortunately does not satisfy other important governance criteria, namely director independence,” said Calvert president Barbara Krumslek in a statement. A […]
Cops Ask For Public’s Help Finding The D-Bags Who Shot Up The Purple Orchid With An AK-47
MYFOXPHILLY: Police say they’re looking for the public’s help to find a man seen on surveillance video firing an AK-47 into a car and a gentleman’s club earlier this month in Southwest Philadelphia. It was 1:55 a.m. on May 11 when police say two men were in a dispute with management and bouncers at the Purple Orchid, located at 3275 South 61st Street in the city’s Elmwood section. After the men were removed from the club, one of them – identified by police as 21-year-old Henry Pettigrew – returned with an AK-47 rifle and fired numerous shots into a vehicle […]
Tornado Alley Teatards Who Voted Down Sandy Relief Now Looking For Federal Handouts
TIME: When Superstorm Sandy battered the East Coast last fall, House Republicans’ insistence that disaster aid be offset by commensurate cuts delayed the flow of cash to the stricken region by several weeks. Speaker John Boehner was forced to scrap a planned vote on New Year’s Day; when the bill finally came up for a vote, 179 Republicans in the House opposed it. Some conservatives appear to have changed their tune this time. Like most Republicans, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma opposed the $60 billion Sandy package, arguing it was laden with pork. At the time, Inhofe dubbed the […]
SIDEWALKING: Veterans Of Forgotten Wars
Delano Stones and Flint Jackson of Vietnam Veterans of America, Liberty Bell Chapter 266, open ceremonies at Annual Veterans Resource Fair this morning by RORY MCGLASSON
EARLY WORD: The Night Time Is The Right Time
Nightlands, for those not keeping score at home, is the sublime bedsit recording project of War On Drugs sideman Dave Hartley. Imagine The Beach Boys, Esquivel and Hawkwind locked in sweaty three-way in the back of a shag-carpeted customized van with a magical unicorn going over an enchanted waterfall to escape the evil wizard airbrushed on the side. Nightlands plays Johnny Brendas next Friday in support of the recently-released Oak Island with Ape School and Our Griffins.