RESTLESS (2011, directed by Gus Van Sant, 91 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this whimsical drama about teens whose lives are touched by death should be given the generic title Restless but it perfectly describes my anxiousness as I slowly accepted that this teen weepie wasn’t going to veer away from its simplistic, melodramatic course. It is only the name of director Gus Van Sant that stirred any optimism for a premise that sounds like a Lifetime Network weeper, but by the halfway mark it became obvious that […]
NEVERMORE: Anwar al-Awlaki, American Citizen/Al-Qaeda Megaphone, Whacked By POTUS
NEW YORKER: Anwar al-Awlaki is dead, according to Administration officials. Does everyone feel safer? There are benefits, of course, to not having someone on the streets or hills of Yemen who wants to kill his fellow Americans—and Awlaki was an American, born in New Mexico. He was killed in a drone strike to his convoy, in an operation run by the C.I.A. and the Joint Special Operations Command. But there are a couple of points here that should make anyone wary: first, that the President of the United States could order the killing of an American citizen with no judicial […]
SIDEWALKING: It’s Later Than You Think
The corner of Somewhere and Everywhere, right now, BY ANONYMOUS
FAILING UP: Failed Execs Still Get Massive Payouts
NEW YORK TIMES: Just last week, Léo Apotheker was shown the door after a tumultuous 11-month run atop Hewlett-Packard. His reward? $13.2 million in cash and stock severance, in addition to a sign-on package worth about $10 million, according to a corporate filing on Thursday. At the end of August, Robert P. Kelly was handed severance worth $17.2 million in cash and stock when he was ousted as chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon after clashing with board members and senior managers. A few days later, Carol A. Bartz took home nearly $10 million from Yahoo after being […]
SPORTO: Are You Ready For Some Playoffs!?!
BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY It was an ingenious move by MLB to switch the end of the regular season to midweek instead of Sunday. Who wants the last day of games to collide with a full day of NFL football? By making the move, baseball had the spotlight all to itself Wednesday night, and gave us what is being called “one of” the best regular season days in the sport’s history (simply by saying “one of”, sportscasters avoid having to step out on a limb or defend their statement). The Phils and Braves went extra innings, so did the […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
Stephen Malkmus, TLA 9:21 PM, last night by JONATHAN VALANIA BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Generation X has always seemed the embodiment of Groucho Marx’s dictum about not wanting to be a member of any club that would have you. That goes double for Stephen Malkmus, Gen X’s aging slacker princeling. As leader of Pavement, Malkmus spent the better part of the ’90s zigging whenever his fan base zagged, and the better part of the last decade cranking out the kind of wanky, Aspergerian solo records that scare off women and try men’s souls. While the pretty, wryly observed […]
RIP: Sylvia Robinson, Godmother Of Rap, Dead At 76
NEW YORK TIMES: Sylvia Robinson, the singer, songwriter and record producer who formed the Sugar Hill Gang and made the first commercially successful rap recording, died early Thursday morning at a hospital in New Jersey. She was 75. Ms. Robinson had a notable career as a rhythm and blues singer long before she and her husband, Joe Robinson, formed Sugar Hill Records in 1979 and served as the midwives for a musical genre that came to dominate pop music. She sang with Mickey Baker as part of the duo Mickey & Sylvia in the 1950s and had several hits, including […]
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: Cops Seize 223 Pounds Of (Relatively) Harmless Marijuana From Trucker, Meanwhile Tons & Tons Of Deadly Tobacco Free To Go
INQUIRER: Officials in Montgomery County have announced the arrest of a Lansdale truck driver on drug charges, and the seizure of 223 pounds of marijuana from a rig they said he owns. Andre Lue, 40, was remanded to the Montgomery County prison when he could not post $500,000 cash bail, said District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman and Lansdale Borough Police Chief Robert McDyre. Lue is charged with possession and intent to deliver a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. McDyre gave this account of the drug bust: On Wednesday at about 1 a.m., Lansdale Borough Officer David Gori was […]
POLICE BRUTALITY: The Ballad Of Tony Baloney
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: The NYPD has launched an investigation into why a police official pepper-sprayed penned-in female Wall Street protesters as video of a second spraying incident also emerged. A now-infamous online video that went viral around the world shows Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna walking up to two women standing inside a corral of orange netting, shooting pepper spray at their faces and striding quickly away, leaving them on their knees, howling in pain. A patrolman standing next to the women can be seen in another video of the same moment wiping his eyes and yelling, “He just [expletive] […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Ray LaMontagne’s Beard
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Soulful, scruffy, silver-tongued singer-songwriter par excellence Brother Ray LaMontagne — think Nick Drake meets Joe Cocker — plays the Mann Music Center on Friday, thus bringing to a close another lovely summer concert season under the stars in Fairmount Park. And gone with it goes Alex Fine’s cool-as-shit line of commemorative baseball cards. Sigh. But fret not, dear reader, we have a pair of tickets to give away to the first person to email us at FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the correct answer to the following question: What is the title of the Ray LaMontagne tune nominated for […]
POLL: Tea Party Less Popular Than Jesus, Much Less
WASHINGTON POST: Negative views of tea party hit new high: A 53 percent majority of Americans now hold a negative view of the tea party in a CNN poll released Tuesday. The results are similar to 51 percent in August but up 13 points from one year ago, when 40 percent saw the movement in a negative light. Democrats are overwhelmingly negative (76 percent unfavorable, 8 percent favorable) while Republicans give positive ratings by 51 to 30 percent. Independents split much like the public overall, with 50 percent unfavorable and 29 percent favorable.MORE RELATED: CNN’s polls aren’t the only ones […]
DEENEY: Crack Is In The House
THE FIX: On this particular Monday morning the voice on the other end of the phone identified herself as a high-ranking official at the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Why was she calling me, I asked? I’m just a rank-and-file, trench-level social worker. She had a last-minute addition to my caseload: a four-year-old child belonging to a mentally ill, addicted mother, living in a public housing unit that had been converted to a crackhouse. It was my job to go find him. Now, 911, high risk, no time to waste. I’ve certainly heard crazier war stories from longtime vets in the profession; […]