Have you ever opened Facebook and swore that it was eavesdropping on your conversation? Either you see an ad for something you were just talking about or, even creepier, just thinking about? Well that is just one example of targeted advertisements, which illustrates just how accurate data mining has become today. Online retailers can now predict a consumer’s purchasing plans based on google searches and web traffic. It’s what William Gibson dubbed pattern recognition. One of the breakout docs at Sundance this year, The Great Hack just hit Netflix and in our interconnected world it could be one of the […]

  BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Philly loves an underdog. Rocky, Gritty, The Phillies, The Eagles et al. Add to the list our own M. Night Shyamalan. Like all good underdog stories, after a promising start he hit a bit of a rough patch (The Happening, Avatar the Last Airbender) but eventually reconnected with audiences by returning to his low budget genre roots with his stealth sequel to Unbreakable, Split. The Sixth Sense, the film that originally introduced us to the world of auteur M. Night, turns 20 years old this week, and in the course of the last two […]

  SPOILER ALERT: Do not read this until after you see the film if you are one of those people who likes to go in with a blank slate. The following is the full monty. BY DAN TABOR AND JONATHAN VALANIA Once Upon A Time In Hollywood , Quentin Tarantino’s Manson-adjacent Hollywood hippie fantasia, is a fuckin’ hoot — let’s just make that clear up front. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, who is kind of an amalgam of Tab Hunter, Fabian, Ty Harden and James Garner. You know, basically your typical ‘50s handsome leading he-man with a big […]

MIDSOMMAR (Dir. by Ari Aster, 140 minutes, 2019, USA) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC It’s been a little over a year since Hereditary was unleashed on audiences and horror wunderkind Ari Aster is already back with Midsommar, yet another transgressive opus. A24 had originally planned to make Midsommar as a slasher film set in Sweden when they offered Aster the project, instead of taking it as is, he rewrote the script from the ground up, turning in a sophomore effort that solidifies him as one of this generation’s most interesting voices in horror. The film still shares some DNA with […]

  SPIDERMAN: Far From Home (Directed by Jon Watts, 129 min., USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC With Marvel fans still reeling from the events of Avengers: Endgame, Spiderman: Far From Home is here to officially close out the ‘Infinity Saga’ and bring an end to phase three. Reuniting Tom Holland’s Spidey with Homecoming director Jon Watts, this installment of the Spiderman saga introduces Jake Gyllenhaal into the MCU fold as Quentin Beck aka Mysterio. Honestly, it’s a little odd to see Gyllenhaal back in the blockbuster game and with Disney, of all studios, after his unfortunate turn in […]

  BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Jim Jarmusch emerged on the American independent film scene in 1980 with his feature length debut Permanent Vacation, written and directed shortly after he dropped out of film school. The film would establish the director’s M.O. going forward: an eccentric cast of hipster characters who inhabit an almost otherworldly, super cool version of New York city. Jarmusch also displayed his musical chops composing the soundtrack for Vacation, that has over time evolved into a side hustle for the director who continues to perform and record with his experimental noise band, SQURL. His next film, […]

  GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (dir. by Michael Dougherty, 131 min.) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC It’s been five years since Godzilla reboot decimated the multiplexes. That film was an artier take on the monster film, directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Rogue One), that seemed to focus more on the human story than the giant lizard namesake that has spawned 30+ films. Since then there has been a refocus of the series, thanks of course to Marvel, to franchise up these monster films. This re-think was introduced in the follow up Kong: Skull Island, which setup not only one […]

BOOKSMART (directed by Olivia Wilde, 102 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Olivia Wilde, who is probably best known for her role as Quorra in Tron: Legacy, steps behind the camera for her feature length directorial debut, the whip-smart, woke teen comedy Booksmart. This SXSW darling is the story of two joyless, over-achieving besties, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) who have an epiphany the night before graduation: they could’ve had fun AND excelled in their academic studies. And so, they endeavor to make their way to the cool kid’s party happening that night, detouring along the […]

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 — PARABELLUM (Dir. by Chad Stahelski, 130 minutes) BY DAN TABOR John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is the third and surprisingly not final installment of the action franchise directed by Keanu Reeves’ Matrix stunt-double-turned-action-maestro Chad Stahelski. The film once again stars Reeves as the namesake Russian hitman who was first sent down this dark path of vengeance when a group of thugs not only stole his car, but killed the puppy that was gifted to him by his recently departed wife. About a week has passed in Wick’s world since his rampage began so far […]

  BY RICHARD SUPLEE GEEK SPACE CORRESPONDENT No one was shocked when Avengers: Endgame crushed the box office opening weekend. Both nerds and normies alike — legions of them — waited for this film since last year’s bummer-ific Avengers: Infinity War. Hell, this film has been hyped for years. The entire Marvel Cinematic Universe built to this moment. And the film lived up to that hype–I cheered, laughed, cried, and said “Holy fuck!” to myself at least 20 times while watching it. WARNING: The preceding is the end of the spoiler-free segment of this article. If you have not yet […]

  HAIL SATAN? (Directed by Penny Lane, 95 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Given the FUBAR state of our country, it’s no surprise that we are inundated with documentaries that try to soothe our troubled minds with Netflix-ian Schadenfreude. Whether it be true crime truth-squadding, pedophile gotchas or rich millennial douchebags stranded on a desert island, our United States Of Fear are perpetuated by these granular takes on real-life human suffering. All of which was on my mind when, with some reluctance, I sat down to watch Hail Satan?, the disarmingly feel-good documentary about the Satanic Temple […]

  BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Recently Phawker had the opportunity to chat with documentarian Penny Lane, whose strangely feel good portrait of The Satanic Temple, Hail Satan? opens in Philadelphia this week. Lane got her big break with her oddly humane and hilarious political portrait Our Nixon, which was comprised of Super 8 home movies confiscated by the FBI during the Watergate investigation. It’s this intimate portrait of Richard Nixon that really set the bar for the Lane’s cinematic style going forward. After Nixon, she tackled John Romulus Brinkley, a doctor who attempted to cure impotence via goat testicle […]

AVENGERS: ENDGAME (Directed by Joe & Anthony Russo, 181 min., USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC The end is near. It’s taken 22 films and 10 years of story to get to this moment: the titular endgame of the MCU’s Infinity Saga. Having lost to Thanos (Josh Brolin), their greatest foe, who brought “balance” the universe by killing half its population — including half The Avengers — in an instant with the cosmically powered Infinity Gauntlet in last year’s Infinity War, the surviving Avengers attempt to cope with the aftermath and undo the damage done. Given the myriad narrative […]