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(06/11/09 1:15am)
There’s something to be said for the perfect road trip. Dashing away to “find yourself” in the grand tradition of Kerouac is an oft-invoked cinematic theme. It provides the luxury of Otherness that throws life’s banality into sharp relief.
(04/23/09 5:02am)
Get accepted. Getting into college is tougher than it used to be, so you may need to resort to stealing the SATs. If it worked for the kids in The Perfect Score (2004), it can work for you. Once you’ve gotten in, throw a Risky Business (1983)-style party, complete with prostitutes and dancing in your underwear. Eventual conversion to Scientology is optional.
(04/23/09 12:51am)
Marisha Pessl
Special Topics in Calamity Physics, 2006
After reading the first two paragraphs of Marisha Pessl’s debut novel, you will want to throttle the narrator. Blue van Meer, a brilliant high school student who gamely follows her professorial father from post to post, illustrates their adventures with enough literary, scientific and academic references to make David Foster Wallace cringe. Keep reading, though, and the references will eventually grow on you — especially as you become enwrapped in the mystery-cum-awakening story. The plot might seem increasingly muddled, but Pessl’s sharp and pointed prose sift through the layers of obfuscation — culminating in an ending that will make you want to start at the beginning.
— Julie Steinberg
(04/16/09 3:40am)
I rarely got in trouble as a kid. Sure, I received the occasional detention for talking in class, but those ended shortly after I began copying lines from the blackboard. The worst punishment was staring at a picture of the nine eight planets for a half hour while contemplating my transgressions. The teacher then asked what I had learned, to which I replied that not all planets have rings. And one is red. He cut the detention short and I went back to worshipping most authority, with the exception of camp counselors who forced me to make lanyards.
(04/16/09 1:24am)
Philadelphia is mad about gastropubs. Predicated on serving high(er) quality food alongside specialty drinks, they’re a welcome alternative to long, drawn-out meals. Ladder 15, the recent venture from the owners of Mad River, follows this model with a few hits and several misses.
(03/11/09 3:50am)
The movie 300 depicts Persian king Xerxes’ decadent lair: plush tapestries, muted lighting and opulent metallic touches lend themselves to hedonistic indulgence. Dining at Tangerine is much like spending an evening in such a harem, though perhaps without the concubines. From the time you enter Tangerine’s majestic portals, you’ll feel millions of miles away from Market Street.
(02/26/09 6:04am)
Cherry blossoms are traditionally known for their brevity. They bloom during one season and make audiences wait another year for the pleasure of their company. Capitalizing on this impermanence, German writer and director Doris Dorrie threads wistful longing through a placid and quietly lovely film.
(02/12/09 5:02am)
It’s tough to think of people other than your love du jour over Valentine's Day. But if you prefer the Peace Corp to petunias, check out this week’s selections from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Screenings began Wednesday evening and will continue through Saturday at the International House — just in time to miss the requisite three-course-meal and champagne.
(02/05/09 3:31am)
Going to a movie is much like going on JDate. We scope out the leading men, assess their talents and qualifications and ultimately decide whether they’d function as good first husbands. Fantasizing about them, however, makes it easy to forget that they’re real people. For instance, I always get disappointed whenever I see Robin Williams going back to rehab, behavior unbefitting a professor from Dead Poet’s Society.
(01/22/09 6:46am)
The Class of 1923 Arena that houses Penn’s ice rink is unknown to most students. Straddling the end of the Walnut Street Bridge on 31st Street, it’s a hulking, faded brown building outshined by luxury apartments across the street. Its stern black lettering looks imposing, and seems to speed up the walk to Center City. Unless you’re a skater, you don’t stop to hear the thwacks of pucks hitting the boards. You don’t feel the frigid air that crackles in the rink. And you don’t hear the grunts from shaggy 20-year-olds who echo the sounds their 1978 doppelgangers made at the same pivotal moments in a game. The rink that was such a marvel in the ‘70s — because no other college in Philadelphia had one — now totters into obscurity at the edge of campus.
(01/22/09 5:08am)
Weather.com informed me that last Friday afternoon would be “18 degrees, feels like 1.” So I bundled up in six layers and proceeded to class in College Hall, where I removed four of them in response to Facilities’ overzealousness with the classroom heaters. On Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised when Weather.com announced 35 degrees for the day’s high. 35? Positively balmy. And next week we get really lucky when the thermometer soars to 43.
(11/20/08 8:34am)
“Bite me” splashes across the chest of a 13-year-old waiting in line in San Francisco to meet the cast of Twilight. “Bloodsuckers Anonymous” proclaims another shirt. One of the more clever reads: “I didn’t get into Hogwarts, so I’m moving to Forks to live with the Cullens” (then again, who doesn’t get into Hogwarts?). Not since Buffy slayed her last vampire in 2003 has biting lore taken on such a titillating tone. With the advent of movies like Twilight and TV shows like True Blood, the main question on everyone’s mind is: where’s the nearest Red Cross and how much for a pint?
(11/20/08 8:27am)
Robert Pattinson is bewildered. Toying with a half-empty bottle of Coke set in front of him, he thumbs the cap a few times before answering a question at the Four Seasons Hotel. He rumples his bronze-flecked mane (which he’s not allowed to cut until after the promotional tour) and answers haltingly in the English accent that’s been responsible for pandemonium at America’s malls. The female journalists swoon, the male ones try to piece together the nouns and verbs Pattinson spews out in no particular order, and the actor leans back in his seat, perplexed by the reaction he’s caused.
(10/23/08 3:52am)
It’s been relatively easy to bash Whartonites and their ilk over the past several weeks. “Look at those fat cats on Wall Street, with their $60 million severance packages,” everyone from the crazy guy next to the Button to The New York Times has sniffed. As one financial titan after another collapses, we’ve seen a few irrepressible smiles from Proust-reading, plaid-clad liberal arts students as the abacus-clutchers seemed to get their just desserts. “Should have read more David Foster Wallace,” they’ve muttered. “Or at least gone to a screening of Barbarians at the Gate.”
(10/02/08 4:00am)
The teen movie is like the irksome little sister of the film industry. It's there and sometimes it can be entertaining, but for the most part, life would be a lot less annoying if it would stop talking so much and quit reading your diary. But in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, director Peter Sollett (Raising Victor Vargas) has created a new genre entirely: the teen movie that caters, incredibly, to adults. The film follows Nick (Cera) and Norah (Dennings), high school seniors who spend a wild night in New York looking for the indie band Where's Fluffy? In typical teen movie fashion, the pair, y'know, like like each other - but watching their romance blossom is more reminiscent of Manhattan than She's All That.
(09/18/08 4:00am)
As an aspiring Philadelphia foodie, I tend to embrace the inherent superiority of BYOs over their liquor-laden counterparts. There's nothing like sitting down in a six-seat restaurant with a bottle of 41st and Market's finest; when the emphasis is on the dining and not the décor, there's a certain je ne sais quoi about eating there.
(04/24/08 4:00am)
Dear James,
(04/17/08 4:00am)
New Releases:
(03/27/08 4:00am)
If the phrase "student film" makes you think of last night's exploits splashed across YouPorn.com, you haven't embraced the Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival (GPSFF). A contest for Philadelphia-area university students, the festival gives awards in five different categories. The winners are then entered into the Philadelphia Film Festival in April.
(03/20/08 4:00am)
Aqua