Film & TV
The Best of the Philadelphia Film Festival
The Answer Man The Answer Man has the trappings of a great movie: a Philadelphia set, an excellent cast and a topical conceit that pokes fun at those who think they know all.
Two Lovers Make Civil Hands Unclean
Carefully spaced family photographs line a wall of Leonard’s parent’s apartment. Tracing many generations of his traditional Italian family, they soon come to represent confinement.
Paging Pixar
In the seminal case of Monsters vs. Aliens, an enormous woman battles googly-eyed antagonists from outer space.
Defibrillator: A Streetcar Named Desire
It’s hard to imagine Marlon Brando as anyone other than the notorious Godfather. But before he was Don Corleone, Brando turned in a riveting performance as Stanley in Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire, based on the play by Tennessee Williams. The film follows Blanche (Vivien Leigh), who arrives on her sister Stella’s doorstep claiming to be suffering a nervous breakdown.
Before Sunrise: A Tryst Gone Right
Act One Film Buff: Wow, I love your posters. Capra and Lynch, such an unusual mix.(1) Seducer: I almost put up my poster of The Third Man, signed by Orson Welles, but it’s much too valuable. Film Buff: [clearly impressed] Seducer: I rented a few films — Requiem for a Dream, The Bicycle Thief and A Woman Under the Influence— but I’m going to leave the final choice up to you.
How To Seduce A Film Buff
Step 1: Put up posters of films by under-appreciated directors. Purchase coffee table books on film noir, Italian neoRealism and cinéma vérité. Explain that your usual arts-haus indie theatre has been closed for inventory the recession, otherwise you would have met there.
Who's Scamming Who?
The premise of Duplicity, the painful new “comedy” from director Tony Gilroy, is that no one can trust anyone else.
Guilty Pleasures: A Very Brady Sequel (1996)
Until I saw A Very Brady Sequel, I thought I was the only person who harbored a secret desire to break into an amateur song-and-dance routine aboard a flight to Hawaii.
We Love You, Man
Street: Are you involved in any real-life bromances? Jason Segel: Well, my best friend since I was 12 years old lived with me until six months ago.
It’s Guy Love, Between Two Guys
Today’s mainstream media is overflowing with bromances. Take, for instance, Superbad’s glorification of male bonding and Brody Jenner’s eponymous reality show Bromance.
A History of Violence
The history of Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s 1986 graphic-novel-turned-movie, is a long and complicated one.
Mob Rules
Street: What in particular drew you to Saviano's book and made you want to turn it into a screenplay? Maurizio Braucci: Before becoming a screenwriter I was a novelist.
Keeping An Eye On Watchmen
The Comedian: The Comedian is one of the only superheroes allowed to continue his work after the Keene Act, the government’s ban of masked crusaders, is passed.
Defibrillator: El Topo (1970)
“If you are great, El Topo is a great film. If you are limited, El Topo is limited,” director Alejandro Jodorowsky said of his epic spaghetti-western, whose wide-scale distribution is owed largely to the efforts of John Lennon.
A Whole New Kind of Evil
In Gomorrah, director Matteo Garrone offers a refreshingly meditative take on the crime movie.
La Primavera
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.
Top Ten Movies Snubbed by Oscar
Nominated, but robbed: 1. Citizen Kane (1941) Lost to: How Green Was My Valley 2.
Point/Counterpoint: The Oscars
Hell, yeah! The Best Picture is awarded to the movie that has mastered all of the individual elements of film-making — musical score, direction, casting, script, acting and more — making them work together to produce a real piece of motion picture art.
Guilty Pleasures: For Richer or Poorer (1997)
How would the Academy have received Witness minus Harrison Ford and all that murder mystery stuff?
