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(11/27/18 1:00pm)
Overlord is everything you’d expect in a WWII–zombie–flamethrower–mad–doctor–thriller–horror film. It follows Boyce, an American soldier, and three other members of his paratrooper squad: Corporal Ford, Tibbet, and Chase. Their mission is to destroy a German radio tower located in an old church in a French city. As the soldiers attempt to carry out their order, they rope in a French girl, Chloe, to help them, and witness Nazi atrocities, human experiments, and an awful lot of (subjectively digestible) body horror.
(11/06/18 1:00pm)
I remember the anxious moments of rewinding a VCR tape, pounding my pudgy kid finger on the button and willing it to go faster. We had a whole collection of Disney films on VCR, and even after the major switch to DVDs swept the nation, we kept our tapes out of a sense of what I can only call nostalgia. In 2017, when the live–action Beauty and the Beast hit marquees, I was no exception to the flock of teenage girls paying to rewatch an old classic. I hunkered down in the movie theatre seat with my pulse in the tips of my fingers as I reached for the popcorn in my sister’s lap, all too ready to feel a new sense of enlightenment or excitement from an old story. Let’s just say that I was profoundly disappointed.
(11/06/18 1:00pm)
Last week at the Philadelphia Film Festival, I sat through a four–hour movie. At the Ritz Five movie theater starting at dusk, I plopped down in my seat, constantly shifting around and losing focus. After dozing off within the first hour of the movie, there was a point when I wanted to exit the theater. I thought I knew exactly where the movie was going, and in my mind, I had thought up the perfect movie review headline: “An Elephant Sitting Still is Proof that Movies Should Be No Longer than Two and a Half Hours.” By midnight, my view couldn’t have changed more dramatically.
(11/07/18 1:00pm)
Aesthetics reign supreme in Suspiria: powerful, contortionist choreography plays to a soundtrack of low–key piano melodies and the music of the dancer’s sighs, while malicious lighting illuminates the face of the cast in red. A remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror film of the same name, Suspiria is director Luca Guadagnino's own spin on the cult classic—with mixed success.
(11/05/18 1:00pm)
The Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, one of the oldest film festivals in Philadelphia, kicked off on November 3—and you don’t want to miss out. A total of 39 films from 12 different countries will be shown, running until November 18.
(11/02/18 12:00pm)
There seem to be no shortage of shows for foodies on Netflix—from Chef’s Table to Ugly Delicious, shows that merge cooking and culture are a huge part of the vast array of docuseries available on the streaming platform. The most recent addition to this wealth of colorful culinary adventures is a four part series called Salt Fat Acid Heat, based on the award–winning cookbook of the same name. Samin Nosrat, the author of the cookbook, serves the pivotal role as the show’s animated hostess, who exudes a kind of humility that convinces viewers that they have the power to master the elements of good cooking. As gorgeous and cinematic as Salt Fat Acid Heat may be, there is something uniquely personal about its approach. While watching, I felt like I was part of the adventure, as though I was in the kitchen or the market with Nostrat, who was taking me on a journey to the very essence of flavor.
(11/28/18 1:00pm)
Riverdale, in its creation, is something of an anomaly. Show creator Roberto Aguirre–Sacasa looked at the unassuming world of the Archie Comics and decided to make a murder–mystery TV show for modern adolescents complete with sex, death, and drama. Its first season fared reasonably well, and for good reason: it had a coherent plot and a somewhat–contained story, looking at the murder of a local student. On Rotten Tomatoes, it received an 88% Fresh rating, which is a solid grade. It had its charm in a supposedly self–aware look at high schools, which seemed to be comically overdone with its mean–girl tropes and its jock with a heart of gold.
(11/05/18 1:00pm)
Being an international human rights, bestselling author, and Golden Globe Nominee were more than enough to earn Loung Ung a keynote speaking event at Perry World House last Friday. But unlike most of the speakers brought to Penn, she was once a refugee and child soldier. It’s no wonder Penn FilmAid had been arranging to plan an event with her since February.
(10/30/18 12:00pm)
Paramount’s Heathers has had a long journey before coming onto the small screen. The project, a modern adaptation of the famous 1989 film starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, was slated to go up months ago but was scrapped in June following controversy around its poor handling of school shootings. It is described as a “black comedy” that is a sexier, modern reboot of the original film. Watching Heathers makes it obvious as to why the project was put on the backmost burner.
(10/31/18 12:00pm)
I've been anticipating the release of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for months. As a a self–proclaimed teen drama fiend, a dark remake of Sabrina the Teenage Witch sounded extremely appealing. Whenever a trailer came out for the show, I clicked right away, and each tease made me for excited for the full season. And on Oct. 26, when the first season of the show came out, I was not disappointed.
(10/31/18 12:00pm)
Remember when Hannah Baker told Zach that 2001: A Space Odyssey was “boring…You should definitely see it so that when pretentious people talk about it you can yawn really loudly,” in season 2 of 13 Reasons Why? Yeah, me neither. I’ve never even seen the show. I have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey though, once, this past weekend in the Franklin Institute’s massive dome theater.
(10/30/18 12:00pm)
When handling difficult, disturbing subject matter, a truly affecting film finds a way of addressing the seriousness of its content without spoon–feeding it to the audience. Beautiful Boy is a portrait of addiction, but also an exploration of just how far a family can bend before it breaks. It's about dark matters that seem a little buried by the film’s glossy exterior. There are moments, however, so wrought with a quiet kind of pain that the film transcends its somewhat thin use of dialogue and lack of deep introspection. Instead of following a wholly linear narrative, Beautiful Boy lets viewers look through the eyes of a father who watches his son fall into the merciless cycle of addiction by stringing together a series of moments. What saves this film from wasting its emotional impact is a structure that reflects the patterns of memory, transporting audiences into the headspace of a parent who feels growing dread and helplessness while he watches a person he loves destroy himself.
(10/30/18 12:00pm)
“Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House. And whatever walked there, walked alone.” So says the opening monologue of The Haunting of Hill House, Netflix’s latest horror series to drop during the Halloween season. A slow burn of anxiety that builds to smart and terrifying scares, Hill House is a meaty television series that explores family and the lasting effects of trauma.
(10/30/18 12:00pm)
Looking for ideas for a Halloween–y bad movie night? Maybe something to watch with your boo (pun intended)? No matter what you have planned this Halloween, it wouldn’t be right to end the festivities without at least one scary movie under your belt. If you aren’t interested in hitting the theater, Netflix offers a wealth of seasonally–appropriate fare to have you at the edge of your seat all through the crisp October night. From horror classics to recent favorites, here is the best and worst that Netflix has to offer.
(11/10/18 1:00pm)
Rupert Everett’s The Happy Prince is self–indulgent. It’s what Everett considers to be his magnum opus: he directs, writes, and stars as the legendary Oscar Wilde in a story about the final years of his life, something which Everett has been interested in for years. His foray with Wilde’s works begins in The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) and continues with his first portrayal of Wilde in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss. It’s clear that The Happy Prince is a work of love, but it seems more like Everett made the work for himself rather than for audiences.
(10/29/18 12:00pm)
So, if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past six months, you know that Election Day is coming up really soon. Like less–than–two–weeks soon. November 6, to be exact. You would also know that the youngest Americans, aged 18 to 29—A.K.A. us—historically have the lowest voter turnout, with less than half showing up to the polls in the 2016 presidential election. But don’t let this discourage you because millennials were also the only age group to report increased voter turnout compared to 2012.
(10/25/18 4:00am)
In The Sisters Brothers, starring Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, there are no good guys. Our protagonists are quite possibly the farthest we get from sympathetic leads, two hired guns who often get wrapped up in conflict and have to shoot their way out. Charlie Sisters, the younger of the two, is impulsive and violent, and uses his alcoholism as an excuse for his rash behavior to his brother. Eli, the older, struggles to clean up after his brothers' reckless attitude while also harboring a past love and the shadow of the two's murderous father.
Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal also star, as a fugitive chemist and the detective after him, respectively, who quickly move past their adversity to join forces in their search for riches. Warren (Ahmed) has developed a formula to quickly locate gold in a river, though it comes with a cost, and the Sisters Brothers are hired to track them down and bring back the formula to their mysterious patron, The Commodore.
Stylistically, The Sisters Bros. is muddy, sleepy, and feels as though seen through a pinhole, at least for the first half, while Eli and Charlie bicker and stumble their way across the Western frontier. It's lack of a distinctive soundtrack is made up for by the steady pace of the plot, and each scene is less begun and ended and more entered and exited as soon as it reaches a peak.
Despite their buffoonery, the two brothers are surprisingly good at their jobs. By the time they locate the two enterprising outlaws, they have left a trail of bodies behind them, without much regard for who they kill. As they move along, it becomes clear that Eli holds most of the emotional core of the film, being forced to bear many burdens as his brothers’ keeper despite being less of an outlaw than his gruff exterior portrays. In a small central cast of four stellar actors, Reilly shines as Eli.
(10/26/18 4:35pm)
A couple of years ago, a friend and I fell victim to a harmless fixation on Salinger’s storytelling. We were sixteen back then and in hindsight, that obsession was a sort of collective mania that we were actually late to join. Late, I say, because it wasn’t The Catcher in the Rye that we read over and over. The culprits in our case were Salinger’s out–of–print publications, a collection of 22 short stories that traced his legacy starting from his time as a student writer at Columbia University to his later success in The New Yorker.
(10/22/18 12:00pm)
Sweaters, falling leaves, pumpkin–flavored everything—you know Halloween is just around the corner when you can smell the autumn in the air. For film lovers, the change in season means an explosion of Halloween–themed film events in every corner of the city. Here are some of Street’s picks:
(10/20/18 11:48pm)
If the increasingly chilly fall weather makes you want to curl up and watch a movie, Philadelphia’s 27th annual film fest is the perfect event for you. The festival, which kicked off on October 18 and runs through October 28, is run by the Philadelphia Film Society (PFS), a nonprofit arts organization. Throughout the year, members of the PFS team scour film festivals for the year’s most critically acclaimed and thought provoking pictures. Keep an eye out for these highly anticipated films; they’ll likely blow up on the big screen in no time.
