ROBERT REICH: The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. None of the standard booster rockets are working: near-zero short-term interest rates from the Fed, almost record-low borrowing costs in the bond market, a giant stimulus package and tax credits for small businesses that hire the long-term unemployed have all failed to do enough. That’s because the real problem has to do with the structure of the economy, not the business cycle. No booster rocket can work unless consumers are able, at some point, to keep the economy moving on their own. But consumers no longer […]
CINEMA: Whatever Happened To Joaquin Phoenix?
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The film is full of dark, sometimes graphic scenes about the Academy Award-nominated Phoenix, whose decision to go for a music career and concurrent decline was fodder for late-night comics. In one scene, Phoenix banters about the irony of his life being depicted in film, when he is trying to get away from the industry. The film follows Phoenix to his last acting and press events, where he grumbles that he “hates” acting. “I think everyone at some point in their life hates their jobs and the people they are around,” he says in opening scenes to explain […]
Live & Direct From The 2nd Annual Naked Bike Ride
BY AARON STELLA The Philly Naked Bike Ride, now in its second year, is intended to raise awareness of Philadelphia’s biker population, and of the advantages of biking: it’s cheap, green, good exercise, communal, and most importantly, fun. And so, from the grassy knoll of Lemon Hill, we rode again—in all there were more than 1,000 of us, many sans clothes—for the Second Annual Philly Naked Bike Ride. Oh yes, I was naked, and so were my friends (pictured above) thanks to some encouragement from a wandering group of women trying to snap pictures with the naked folk. Among the […]
SIDEWALKING: Fruit Of The Loons
Red Bull Flugtag, Camden Waterfront, Yesterday, by FELICIA PERRETTI
HEAVY MEDDLE: Kiss Parking Lot
Directed by Puddlepower.
CINEMA: Spare Us The Cutter
MACHETE (2010, directed by Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Manquis, 105 minutes, U.S.) MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY #1 (2008, directed by Jean-François Richet, 133 minutes, France) SOUL KITCHEN (2009, directed by Fatih Akin, 99 minutes, Germany) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC After twenty-five years of playing glowering bad guys, ex-con turned actor Danny Trejo has finally made the improbable move to leading man in Robert Rodriguez’s action film throw-back Machete. Carefully balanced between spoof and action vehicle, Machete delivers on the berserk carve-’em-up mayhem promised in the character’s original fake trailer made for the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse collaboration. Machete possesses a bullish […]
PALINTOLOGY: Hunting The Sarahcudda
VANITY FAIR: Sarah Palin’s connection with her audience is complete. People who admire her believe she is just like them, and this conviction seems to satisfy their curiosity about the objective facts of her life. Those whose curiosity has not been satisfied have their work cut out for them. Palin has been a national figure for barely two years—John McCain selected her as his running mate in August 2008. Her on-the-record statements about herself amount to a litany of untruths and half-truths. […] She manages to be at once a closed book and a constant noisemaker. Her press spokesperson, Pam […]
SIDEWALKING: Surf’s Up
Ocean City, Thursday 6:41 PM by JEFF FUSCO
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Another Oil Rig Blows Up In The Gulf, Mile Long Oil Slick Spotted On The Water
NEW YORK TIMES: An oil sheen one mile long was spotted on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico hours after an offshore oil platform exploded there on Thursday morning, the United States Coast Guard said. It was unclear how much oil was leaking, and whether it was spilling from the damaged platform or welling up from beneath the surface of the Gulf. But the prospect of a second oil leak was unnerving for a region still recovering from the environmental and financial toll of the months-long spill at a BP well earlier this year. Coast Guard officials said the […]
MUST SEE TV: Inside Job
ROGER EBERT: I am but a naive outsider. I don’t fully understand the working of the “derivatives” and “credit swaps” that we have heard so much about in recent months. I’m not alone. But I’m learning. I gather that these are ingenious computer-driven trading schemes in which good money can be earned from bad debt, and Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe pocket untold millions at the same time they bankrupt their investors and their own companies. This process is explained in a shocking documentary named “Inside Job,” which was just named the best single film at Cannes 2010. It […]
ARTSY: Getting Your Fringe On
BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL FRINGE CORRESPONDENT It’s the most wonderful time of the year again, when every night of the first half of September is your opportunity to break up with monotony. The 2010 Philadelphia Live Arts/Philly Fringe festival is back, and as usual, the selection is overwhelming. This year the Festival puts more emphasis on film and visual art than usual, widening the focus of entertainment choices, and has brought the Festival Bar further south again, tightening the geographic intensity. So, please, go out every single day and night and make sure that you view every single show. Make sure […]
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
Discovery Channel Gunman NOT A Fan Of Kate Plus 8
ASSOCIATED PRESS: It wasn’t the first time Lee, a homeless former Californian, had targeted Discovery’s headquarters. In February 2008, he was charged with disorderly conduct for staging a “Save the Planet Protest.” In court and online, he had demanded an end to Discovery Communications LLC’s shows such as TLC’s “Kate Plus 8” and “19 Kids and Counting.” Instead, he said, the network should air “programmes encouraging human sterilization and infertility.” “Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding cultures,” Lee wrote in a bitter manifesto […]