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Archive: September, 2009
Every Wednesday, Critical Mass pops into a neighborhood and finds its most stylish residents.
For my first week writing this brand-new street style column, I hit up Temple University. The people who impressed me most knew how to dress for the changing weather/seasons, mixing warm-weather items like sundresses and shorts with more autumnal pieces like scarves and boots. First up is Sara L., who wore a simple black, white and grey ensemble:
Sara L., 20, student
Favorite place to shop: "Joyce Leslie and H&M."
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| Nicole Saylor |
Ben H., 18, student
Pieces you won't leave home without: "A purple hoodie and Ray-Ban Wayfarer glasses."
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| Nicole Saylor |
Click the jump to see three more stylish kids.
Kristen V., 18, student
Personal style: "Comfy and modest, but keeping it feminine and chic at the same time."
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| Nicole Saylor |
Nicole S., 20, student
Biggest fashion splurge: "A pair of 1980s red leather boots off of E-Bay."
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| Nicole Saylor |
Samantha K., 21, student
Favorite local boutique: "Topstitch."
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| Nicole Saylor |
S, You know, it's cheating to use people you know, just saying. I'm kidding, I'm just jealous you didn't pick me. If I really was B, I would dress a lot better than I do. Anyhow, love your column. Mwah. xoxo, B
Ben H. has a great look. He must come from a very stylish family.
Hello new favorite blog. I love you.
Ben H is not stylish, he looks at the pages of urban outfitters. That is not style, that is just being another hipster. He is a wanna-be, fake, and has enough money to buy what he sees on a rack, nothing is original.
The Philadelphia International Film Festival announced it full line-up today. The 18 1/2 anniversary of the fest takes place Thursday, October 15-Monday, October 19.
Screenings will take place at Ritz at the Bourse (400 Ranstead St.) and the Prince Music Theater (1412 Chestnut St.). Tickets go on sale to Film Society members tomorrow and the general public on Monday, October 5 at PFF09.org or 215-253-3599. Keep reading Crit Mass for further info on the fest.
And the line-up is ' :
Ajami (Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani, Germany/Israel)
Antichrist (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, UK)
Dare (Adam Salky, USA) ' Filmed on the Main Line
Dear Lemon Lima (Suzi Yoonessi, USA)
District 13: Ultimatum (Patrick Alessandrin, France)
The Eclipse (Conor McPherson, Ireland)
A Film With Me In It (Ian Fitzgibbon, Ireland)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, UK)
Good Hair (Jeff Stilson, USA)
Law Abiding Citizen (F. Gary Gray, USA)
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (Jodie Markell, USA)
Louise-Michel (Gustave de Kervern & Beno't Del'pine, France)
Mammoth (Lukas Moodysson, Sweden)
The Men Who Stare at Goats (Grant Heslov, USA)
The Messenger (Oren Moverman, USA)
Oh My God (Peter Rodger, USA)
The Overbrook Brothers (John Bryant, USA)
P-Star Rising (Gabriel Noble, USA)
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire (Lee Daniels, USA)
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (Rebecca Miller, USA)
Red Cliff (John Woo, China)
The Red Riding Trilogy: Red Riding 1974 (Julian Jarrold, UK), Red Riding 1980
(James Marsh, UK) and Red Riding 1983 (Anand Tucker, UK)
Rembrandt's J'accuse (Peter Greenaway, Netherlands/Germany/Finland)
Ricky (Fran'ois Ozon, France)
Serious Moonlight (Cheryl Hines, USA)
Shadow Billionaire (Alexis Spraic, USA)
Shameless (Jan Hrebejk, Czech Republic)
The Silence Before Bach (Pere Portabella, Spain)
Stingray Sam (Cory McAbee, USA)
Tenure (Mike Million, USA)
A Town Called Panic (St'phane Aubier & Vincernt Patar, Belgium)
We Live in Public (Ondi Timoner, USA)
Wonderful World (Joshua Goldin, USA)
The Young Victoria (Jean-Marc Vall'e, UK
Related: Philadelphia Film Festival '09 announces opening and closing night films
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| Rob Kulisek |
| Creative director Nick Zegel and cinematographer Kyle Pahlow |
While the Jerz isn't known for its killer waves, Philadelphians Nick Zegel and Kyle Pahlow set out to document a group of surfers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania in A Pleasant Surprise. While the hour-long film world premiered in the house that Springsteen built (aka, Asbury Park, N.J.), A Pleasant Surprise get its Philadelphia first showing tomorrow at the Piazza.
Zegel sent out the summary:
A Pleasant Surprise offers an honest look at the talents of a select group of surfers who live in a truly special part of the United States. Almost three years in the making, this film documents a world of contrast as daily changes in weather and waves prove to be all part of a larger picture; thumping beach breaks, cold water, and quick tropical storms are just a fraction of what you will find. Brought to you in Super 16mm, A Pleasant Surprise allows for the full beauty of this region and its surfers to be realized.
I haven't caught it yet but I have a thing for surf movies, like Endless Summer and Riding Giants (not to mention the greatest surf movie of all time: Point Break). From the looks of the trailer, which you can watch below, it has the same Endless Summer vibe and I'm digging the 16 mm, which gives everything that grainy, film stock-y glow (Digital be damned! Long live Super 16!)
A Pleasant Surprise, 8 p.m., free, Piazza at Schmidts, Hancock St. and Germantown Ave., atthepiazza.com.
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| Courtesy of Moore College |
Beyond not wanting members of PETA to pour fake blood on you, there are many reasons to trade in real fur for the faux kind ' it's less expensive, not raised on factory farms, and often looks just as good or better than the real thing. Case in point: Junior and senior fashion design students at Moore College of Art and Design created fake fur pieces for tonight's Jumpstart Fashion Show, and they're stunning, playful and super inventive. Materials used include toothpicks, nails, bobby pins, Brillo pads, dusters, mops, plastic bags and cotton balls ' basically things lying around unused in most homes. Which brings us to another upside of faux fur: It can often be made from found and recycled materials, which, in our opinion, is a lot more respectable than simply buying so-called organic fur.
The fashion show is going down from 6-6:30 p.m., for free, at Moore College (20th Street and Ben Franklin Parkway, 215-965-4000). Click below for more images from the event.
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| Courtesy of Moore College |
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| Courtesy of Moore College |
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| Courtesy of Moore College |
Looks fabulous!!
Remember on Monday when we put our foot down and demanded that Paramount bring shoestring-budget horror movie Paranormal Activity to Philadelphia? Well, they listened (/figured out that bringing a movie geared at college kids to a large metropolitan area with several universities was a good idea and didn't give a fuck about what we said. Whatever.)
Anyway, Paranormal Activity will screen this Friday at 12:01 a.m. (Thursday night/Friday morning, ya dig?) at the Bridge. Because they're not screening Paranormal Activity for critics, and this entire roll-out plan is a litmus test for the power of social media and user response, let us know what you think about if you go on Friday.
UPDATE: Buy tickets here.
Paranormal Activity, Fri., Oct. 2, 12:01 a.m., Bridge Cinema de Lux, 40th and Walnut streets, 215-386-3300, thebridgecinema.com.
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| Great Lake Swimmers |
Apparently no one is sick of the soft, dreamy love songs being churned out by so many beard-rock bands, all of which seem to hail from either the Midwest or Canada. Even the most jaded among us, though, will find the music of Great Lake Swimmers hard to resist ' especially now that summer is officially over and the cold weather is settling in, with no plans on leaving anytime soon. Most of the band's songs roll in slow and thick, and lull you right to sleep. Whether it's the plucking of the banjo or the gentle lyrics that tickle your heartstrings, Toronto's Swimmers will build a cozy atmosphere of tunes that'll make you feel warm and fuzzy at Johnny Brenda's (1201 Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684) tonight at 9 p.m., for $12. The beer might help you achieve that feeling, too, though.
Every Tuesday, Critical Mass sifts through the art blog world so you don't have to.
-From the Oprah mad-cow scandal to the Quarter-Pounder, Americans can't seem to get enough of beef. It's no wonder, then, that the Urban Outfitters blog took a liking to local artist Dominic Episcopo's 'United Steaks," a collection of photographs featuring slabs of meat carved to resemble Texas, Jersey, California and other states. Sidenote: We've been diggining Episcopo for a while.
-Miss Bee from Phillyist gives a recount of NFL stats ' Twitter-style. Which is quite a bit more approachable than reading something like ESPN.com, especially if you know jack about football (comme moi).
-The art of bookmaking is enjoying a comeback. (Perhaps because the Kindle is dooming the future of mass-produced books?) By binding antique books in recycled leather from old holsters and chaps, Philly artist Margaux Kent is already tackling the arty book market, which both Free People and alpha blog Boing Boing gave props to last week.
-Many people are familiar with Quirk Books' Worst-Case Scenario guides, but this Philly publisher is starting to take the literary world by leaps and giggles with its newer collections, which add a monster spin to classic books. As noted on their Irreference blog, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just got a plug on the season premiere of Heroes. Check out the book trailer for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters up top.
-Last week City Paper gave a Choice Award to Munish Narula, the creator of Tiffin, a Web-based Indian food delivery company that's seen huge success in the region. But things are getting even better for those who fuel themselves with Tiffin's cuisine. Meal Ticket reports that along with their meal, Northern Liberties residents can now order a Bollywood film ' making those Urvashi turnovers feel even more authentic.
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| Photo | Joseph Ramirez |
The weirdness.
Before heading out to the Starfucker show, I tried to convince my friend to come along with this text:
synths, drum machines and way more instruments than people. Its low fi pop u can dance to if u want and sometimes they play in drag. Great cindy lauper cover.
All these promises came true, but so did the realization that we were in a dorm room basement full of sloppy college freshmen and even some high schoolers cutting their curfews close.
I would have felt creepy being there, but somehow the male bass player's short sundress and smeared lipstick justified most of the weirdness.
The band played musical chairs with their instruments, trading off several times mid-song, and they managed to blend intentional feedback with falsetto choruses. The crowd's energy swelled with the funky electronica, but the band didn't seem to notice and just ended their songs without capitalizing on the momentum, dropping the ball instead of dropping the beat.
I, like pretty much everyone else I've discussed it with, am intensely pumped for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. In anticipation of its October 16 release, Stereogum is streaming the soundtrack on their site.
The soundtrack is by Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O and the Kids, which, according to Imeem (who are also streaming the soundtrack) is made up of:
Tristan Bechet (Services), Tom Biller (co-producer with Karen O and member of Afternoons), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age, The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs), Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Greg Kurstin (The Bird and the Bee), Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes), Oscar Michel (Gris Gris), Imaad Wasif (New Folk Implosion, Alaska), Nick Zinner, (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and an untrained children's choir.
Related: Spike Jonze + the Rosenbach heart Maurice Sendak
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