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Film Fest
The 15th annual FirstGlance Film Festival comprises a host of independent shorts, docs and features, many of which are based in Philly. Bill Haley’s Steve Phoenix: The Untold Story is one of the full-length flicks. It follows a down-on-his-luck reporter searching for his big break in Fishtown. But the festival’s primary focus is on shorts. Destined, by Michael Giletto and Andrew Laquintano, deals with evil spirits, morals and a jealous husband, while Lee Porter’s comedic web series My Ruined Life is a humorous look at the woes of everyday life. For reviews of these films and a host of other Philly-connected offerings, check this week's movies section.
Nov. 9-11, all films screen at the Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St., $8-$12 per screening or $75 for an all-access pass. For more information, go to firstglancefilms.com.
FirstGlance Film Fest just released the lineup of flicks that will be shown at the 15th annual Philadelphia festival, taking place Nov. 9-11 at the Franklin Institute. Congrats and good luck to the Philly-connected offerings, which are bolded in the full list of films below.
Click here for the full list of 2012 Philadelphia FirstGlance offerings. »
For the third year (and third location this year), Awesome Fest will present a series of free outdoor screenings, every Saturday till the end of August at Race Street Pier. As usual, the programmers will screen Philadephia premieres of flicks from indie festivals like Sundance and SXSW.
For your convenience, we've rounded up the complete schedule below, complete with dates and silly little descriptions:
PILGRIM SONG An ex-music teacher sets out to find himself along Kentucy's Sheltowee Trace Trail, joining forces with a father-and-son duo along the way. Sat., June 30.
If you’re looking to satisfy your Blues Brothers fix, look no further. Starting tonight at Liberty Lands, Awesome Fest — an organization dedicated to screening movies of the highest caliber at unconventional venues — will present “The Awesome 80s on the Awesome Screen!”, which is exactly what it sounds like. With one crowd-pleasing hit from each year of the glamorous decade, Awesome 80s will put a little more blues-playin’, ghost-bustin’, jungle-alien-fightin’ flicks into your summer. Each screening is BYOB, but we suggest leaving the parachute pants and hair gel at home.
Below is the Awesome 80s schedule. Each movie begins at sundown.
- June 28 – The Blues Brothers (1980, 133 min.)
- July 5 – Stripes (1981, 106 min.)
- July 12 – The Road Warrior (1982, 95 min.)
- July 19 – National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983, 89 min.)
- July 26 – Ghostbusters (1984, 105 min.)
- Aug. 2 – Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985, 90 min.)
- Aug. 9 – Top Gun (1986, 110 min.)
- Aug. 16 – Predator (1987, 107 min.)
- Aug. 23 – Beetlejuice (1988, 92 min.)
- Aug. 30 – The Wizard (1989, 100 min.)
[ C ] Little Rose (Róźyczka) was chosen for the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival for its political and religious commentary on 1968 Poland. The film takes place directly after the Six Days War, a conflict between Israel and Arab forces, which inspired a wave of riots and protests among Polish youth and intellectuals alike. Director Jan Kidawa-Blonski uses this backdrop to present the ways in which Poland’s communist government suppressed academic progress and prosecuted communist dissenters, especially those of Jewish heritage.
The film makes subtle reference to the ignorance of Polish government officials to handle the riots appropriately, as their prosecutions were haphazard, anti-Semitic and without concrete evidence. But aside from this mere glimpse at the historical context for the film, Kidawa-Blonski’s political motive seems to get hidden beneath the steamy triangular love plot among a stern security colonel, Roman Rozek, his girlfriend, and the colonel’s target, Warczewski, a respected Polish intellectual, writer and professor. The historical context gets hidden so well, in fact, that audiences without prior knowledge of communist Polish history might just miss it.
At first, when the colonel decides to use his girlfriend, the irresistible Kamila (Magdalena Boczarska), as a pawn to spy on Warczewski and prove his Zionist loyalty, he does not predict the consequences on both his government office and his bedroom.
Check this space all week for reviews and coverage of the 2011 FirstGlance Film Festival.
On paper, the plan in Philly-bred director Jennifer Barbaro's music video, Burning Witches, makes total 
sense. A rock 'n' roll band is on stage playing to a crowd of nuns. After hearing the righteous rock assault, the nuns strip and get down and dirty. Hijinks ensue. Oh, and the footage is be intercut with the frontman lying down, preparing to die, because being a big-time rock 'n' roller isn't easy.
Surprisingly, the finished product doesn't deliver. The band isn't aware of the failed execution, but the dancers sure are. Their facial expressions suggest that they're merely counting the seconds until it's all over. And when they strip it's clear it's because the director told them to. The music itself doesn't help, either. The band sounds like a diet version of Godsmack.
The grand concept of the singer battling his demons comes across as really dumb, at best. Whenever you see him on stage, he's either preening like a Billy Idol-wannabe, bro-ing out with the guitarist, or twirling his guitar. Never do you get the impression that he's struggling with something. If he's struggling with anything, it's not on the screen.
Things come out flat and over-rehearsed. The band's look — with dyed hair, leather and tattoos — just doesn't seem real. It's like they think if they're dressed the part, the rest will just magically happen. It doesn't.
CITY PAPER GRADE: D-
Sat., Oct. 15, 5:45 p.m., $10, screens with Love, Processed, The Kook, FLAGPOLE, Meet Me On South Street, Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St., firstglancefilms.com/philadelphia.
Check this space all week for reviews and coverage of the 2011 FirstGlance Film Festival.
Noah Hutton, director of indie doc More To Live For, has not taken his role as a filmmaker lightly. In fact, 
he might be nearing the boundary between filmmaker and activist. He has not released a tear-jerking documentary on the devastation of cancer or traced the battle of a patient’s chemotherapy treatment for mere emotional response. Instead, Hutton focuses his lens toward a different angle on the subject of cancer. His intended audience consists of the undiagnosed, unrelated, maybe completely unaffected members of the community who are most likely unaware how simplistic and valuable it might be to get involved.
While the primary voices come from three men whose lives were challenged immeasurably by their cancer diagnosis, it is the ever-present, undertone of a cry to action that speaks loudest. It spells out the desperate need for all members of the community to be tested as potential bone-marrow donors, and join in the fight to beat the epidemic as it spreads around the world. As we see in the chronicles of subjects Seun Adebiyi (pictured), James Chippendale and Michael Brecker, the actual bone-marrow transplant isn't the hurdle. We are simply battling the odds to find a match.
CITY PAPER GRADE: B
Sat., Oct. 15, 3:15 p.m., $8, screens with Little Hero, Controlled Burn, Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St., firstglancefilms.com/philadelphia.
Check this space all week for reviews and coverage of the 2011 FirstGlance Film Festival.
Somewhere among the forced dialog and weak supporting roles, there lies The Calendar Girl Killer, a 
man who has assaulted eleven girls in the past year (one of whom is a Drexel student) and is now turning his attention to Miss December. The serial killer is on the loose in Philadelphia, but even local viewers won’t bat an eye with the abrupt music that basically shouts, “watch, viewers, this is the scary part!” Instead of creeping forward at an accelerating rate as most thrillers do, Philly director Derek Lindeman’s Calendar Girl lazily saunters forward before giving a slight push at the end. An unnecessary amount of slow scenes with shallow character development was probably meant to give struggling actors more screen time, but the end result is the slowing down of the plot’s flow.
Ari, well played by Jensen Bucher, is a cynical goth-punk waitress at a diner. But even though we’re meant to feel sympathy for her, the character’s repetitive self-destructive behavior transforms her into the antagonist. She consciously surrounds herself with sociopaths who snap stalker photos of her or physically abuse her. So when she reads the Zodiac-esque newspaper article describing the killer’s next victim, Ari’s flattered that she now has a “secret admirer.”
While the new year approaches, Ari juggles three men in her life. Her best friend Chris (Lindeman) acts as her guardian, warning her against the menacing men in her life. But Lindeman’s smiles resemble winces, and the character is so awkward that he becomes unlikeable. Her ex-boyfriend Jon is a thug who wins her approval once he threatens a homeless man with a knife. And her new beau, Phil, is a dorky and slightly neurotic guy who claims to be a freelance photographer.
Check this space all week for reviews and coverage of the 2011 FirstGlance Film Festival.
With a running time just under twenty minutes, Theresa Wu's locally shot Smoke and Mirrors is forced to 
get straight to the point. Within the first ninety seconds, the protagonist, Sarah, (Krystal Yam) has been caught smoking in the bathroom and finds herself knee-deep in a shit storm created by her mother (Vanessa Kai). Throughout the film, the mother/daughter relationship is taunting at best, with Sarah's mom constantly berating her about school, social interactions and the work she does for the family take-out biz. At one point, Sarah's father even steps in and asks the question on everyone's mind, "Why are you always yelling at her?"
The turning point comes when Sarah finds her mother getting friendly with a customer outside the restaurant — something that is normally against the rules. So as far as she's concerned, if her mother doesn't follow the rules then why should she? Sarah becomes incensed, grabs a pack of cigs and climbs into the back of a van with a boy. She immediately rebuffs his advances, but for a brief moment she sees the possibilities that await her. This is the moment the movie goes from just teen drama to something more.
Being a teenager is tough, and breaking the rules generally feels pretty good at least for a moment. The film moves at a quick clip, never leaving time to dwell on any one aspect. Some viewers may spend the entire film wondering what it is that drives this 14-year-old to smoke, but in doing so they'll miss the real point. Don't do that.
CITY PAPER GRADE: B
Sun., Oct. 16, 5 p.m., screens with Sunday Twilight, Take Your Medicine, The Story, Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St. firstglancefilms.com/philadelphia.
Check this space all week for reviews and coverage of the 2011 FirstGlance Film Festival.
Local filmmaker Andrew Ari Clibanoff's Air We Breathe shows a lot of heart but offers disappointing 
results. If you can get past audio imperfections like the popping P's and S's, and distracting changes in ambient noise in between camera switches, you're left facing an almost shockingly unoriginal script. The film is a twenty-four-and-a-half-minute indie cliché about a washed up alcoholic writer and a visitor with an unknown agenda. It's like a Hal Hartley joint without the post-modernism, which translates to almost unwatchable.
The acting is actually pretty decent, despite the inexplicable casting. Each of the four actors look to be in their mid-20s, which makes it hard to believe the protagonist is a has-been great writer.
This could-be tale of cathartic transcendence needs more narrative. The weight attempted to be hoisted onto these characters in a 24-minute period doesn't have nearly enough fuel to ignite a substantial dramatic experience. Nor does the dialogue offer it's modestly talented (if distractingly young) actors a chance to make any memorable impressions with their material. I hope they keep at it because Air We Breathe shows a lot of ambition. But the end product might as well be a long film trailer designed to reel you in by not showing you any of the interesting parts.
CITY PAPER GRADE: D
Sat., Oct. 15, 8 p.m., $10, screens with Ring Theory, Luz, and Falling Overnight, Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St., firstglancefilms.com/philadelphia.
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