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Archive: September, 2009
Back in December, I told you about Sweaty Robot, the Philly-bred comedy collective, and their feature length debut, Happy Birthday, Harris Malden. Like many indie filmmakers, Sweaty Robot have taken to the internet to get their work to the masses, hooking up with trailblazing online distributor Cinetic. Even though Sweaty Robot has moved to L.A. (boo!), SR member Eric Levy hit us up to say that Harris Malden is free for the watching on Hulu (also embedded above).
Happy Birthday, Harris Malden is irreverent yet sweet, without ever crossing the twee line. From the piece:
Harris Malden centers around its title character (Nick Gregorio), who dons faux facial hair (which morphs from a traditional mustache to a goatee to a Snidely Whiplash curlicue) because of a childhood trauma. But no one talks about it, they simply accept it. Harris is sequestered in his South Philly neighborhood by his best friend/straightman Paul (Levy) and brother Melvin (Juan Cardarelli) to shield him from an unfeeling outside world. Harris' naivet' is shattered when Paul's girlfriend shows up at his birthday party and utters the unspeakable: Your mustache is fake
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| nydailynews.com |
| Sweetie, dating Marilyn Manson doesn't qualify you as a real vampire. |
Re-capping True Blood each and every week.
Last episode's slender foot dripping with blood belongs to a woman that is more than willing to be suckled upon by the Vampire Queen, Sophie-Anne. But just because actress Evan Rachel Wood is undead-pale, that doesn't mean she possesses the commanding presence to play a vampire queen.
Nevertheless, the royal delays help-seeking Bill. He sleeps at her palace, awakens to feast on Sophie's devoted humans and play Yahtzee the next night. When Bill insists on leaving, the Queen finally tells Bill that the only way to get rid of the maenad Maryann is to let her meet with the God Who Comes. Turns out Maryann sought Sam not for sacrifice, but as a vessel for the God Who Comes, because of his supernatural nature. But since she's been so unsuccessful with Sam, chances are Maryann will probably move on to Sookie.
Meanwhile, in Bon Temps, Jessica gets fed up with Hoyt's mother and takes a bite at her neck in anger. But it's a 'whoops' moment for the young vamp, as you just don't come between a man and his momma. Fortunately for Hoyt, the possessed Maxine is tickled by the attack. Later, when Hoyt checks on his mother in the kitchen, she is busy cooking a meal for Maryann ' and lets it slip that Hoyt's father killed himself.' She had lied about his death in order to collect insurance money.
Tara is back in the land of the lucid, but she's too worried about Eggs to stay put at Lafayette's. To thwart a possible escape, the big guy puts her in fuzzy handcuffs. But by manipulating her mother, Tara ends up right back where she began ' with Eggs, complete with those big black eyes and at the hands of Maryann.
At Merlotte's, Sam confesses to Jason and Andy that he can shapeshift, and while justifiably impressed, neither Jason nor Andy is all that surprised, which just goes to show how desensitized you can become while living in Bon Temps. Jason and Andy take off to the sheriff station to collect weapons, ignoring the truth that Sam makes plain that Maryann cannot be killed by human means.
After the departure of the bumbling bosom-buddies, Sam finds Arlene's kids hiding out in the woods, unpossessed. He takes them to Fangtasia in search of aide from Eric. And in case there was any doubt, Eric blatantly announces he wants Sookie in exchange for his help with the maenad but Sam balks. Seeing a fruitful possibility to impress Sookie, Eric flies off to the Queen's place. He meets Bill on the way in, who threatens to tell the Queen of Eric's V-dealing ways if he gets near Sookie.
Back in Bon Temps, Sookie and Lafayette make there way over to Gran's house to try to save Tara and Eggs. Arlene and Terry stop them but are easily distracted by the bag of pills that Lafayette tosses on the ground. With his distraction, Sookie is able to enter the house, but it's too late, as she finds Eggs and the repossessed Tara dancing around a giant nest that cradles a emu-sized egg. A man's nail-polished hand lands upon her shoulder. When Sookie turns she realizes it's Lafayette, with black eyes himself, also having fallen under Maryann's control.
The Philadelphia Jewish Film Fest is getting up there in years, and this time around fest programmers are rejiggering the schedule a bit. Rather than break up films by themed weekend, there's the three-week long fest, which consists of 22 films from Oct. 24 to Nov. 14. The Documentaries and Dialogue series runs through January and February, while new filmmakers takes over May.
The schedule is after the jump.
CIRCUMCISE ME
Saturday, October 24, 8 pmTHE LITTLE TRAITOR
Sunday, October 25, 1 pmTWO LIVES PLUS ONE (DEUX VIES... PLUS UNE)
Sunday, October 25, 4 pmTHE DEAL
Sunday, October 25, 7 pmVILLA JASMIN
Tuesday, October 27, 7 pm at International HouseARAB LABOR
Wednesday, October 28, 7 pmTICKLING LEO
Thursday, October 29, 7 pmLA CAMERA OSCURA
Saturday, October 31, 8 pmTHE MAURICE SENDAK LIBRARY
Sunday, November 1, 1 pmWRESTLING WITH ANGELS: PLAYWRIGHT TONY KUSHNER
Sunday, November 1, 4 pmMILTON GLASER: TO INFORM AND DELIGHT
Sunday, November 1, 7 pmGRUBER'S JOURNEY
Tuesday, November 3, 7 pmA TOUCH AWAY
Wednesday, November 4, 7 pmTHE GIFT TO STALIN
Thursday, November 5, 7 pmFUGITIVE PIECES
Saturday, November 7, 8 pmWILLIAM KUNTSLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE
Sunday, November 8, 3:30 pm at The Painted BrideBEING JEWISH IN FRANCE
Sunday, November 8, 1 pmTHE WAVE
Sunday, November 8, 7 pmNUREMBERG: THE NAZIS FACE THEIR CRIMES
Tuesday, November 10, 7 pm at International HouseSRUGIM
Wednesday, November 11, 7 pm$9.99 - Read Sam Adams' review
Thursday, November 12, 7 pm at Bryn Mawr Film InstituteTHE WEDDING SONG (LE CHANT DES MARIEES)
Saturday, November 14, 8 pmDOCUMENTARIES & DIALOGUE
THE FIRE WITHIN: JEWS IN THE AMAZONIAN RAINFOREST
Monday, January 11, 7 pmINHERITANCE
Monday, January 18, 7 pmLOOK INTO MY EYES
Monday, January 25, 7 pmHOLLYWOODism! DOUBLE FEATURE
SHADOWS IN PARADISE: HITLER'S EXILES IN HOLLYWOOD
&THE BROTHER'S WARNER
Monday, February 1, 7 pmHEART OF STONE
Monday, February 8, 7 pmSKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY
Monday, February 15, 7 pmNEW FILMMAKERS WEEKEND
HAG: THE STORY OF THE HASIDIC ACTORS' GUILD
& B-2247: A GRANDDAUGHTER'S UNDERSTANDING
Saturday, May 1, 8 pmOFF AND RUNNING -- Read my QFest review
Sunday, May 2, 1 pmTHE BEETLE
& BEAUTIFUL HILLS OF BROOKLYN
Sunday, May 2, 4 pmDARLING! THE PIETER-DIRK UYS STORY
& SHMUL KAPLAN
Sunday, May 2, 7 pmNYMPHS IN THE MIST
Monday, May 3, 7 pm
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' there's a fundraiser at The Fire (Fourth and Girard streets, 267-671-9298) on Sun., Sept. 6 at 6 p.m., to get a mural of him up in Philadelphia. (He's from Philly, remember?) Victor Victor Band, MikingMirhab, Seizure 17, Surgeon and bRat Bangs will perform, there'll be a raffle for a portrait of Chomsky, and the design of the mural will be up for all to see. Read more on the artist proposing this idea, Peter Pagast, here.
Watch this video with local photographer Bruce Kravetz, who basically says that the reason he doesn't cheat on lovers or do other incendiary stuff is because he's got art ' meaning he can direct all his passion/energies on it, instead of others. City Paper's videographer Neal Santos says he found Kravetz while just walking around the city. You can see his art (including the sculpture he's shooting in the video) on his Web site.
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| Kelly Mueller |
| Mueller, the Art Hotel's first resident, painted this work, "Foo Dog Dance." |
I wrote a piece last week about what's arguably the quirkiest residency in town, the Philadelphia Art Hotel. It even out-quirks the one offered by the Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study, which furnishes residents with a place to rest their heads, a studio, a bike (!) and a computer for a month. The Art Hotel, on the other hand, is only two weeks long, free, located in the founders' actual apartment (which they vacate when residents come to town), and will eventually (hopefully) incorporate an artist-created mini-golf course. As to be expected with such a weird bunch, there was a lot of information from my interview with the founders, Krista Peel and Zak Starer, that I couldn't include in the piece. Here are the highlights:
City Paper: You recently moved to Philly. Why did you decide to start the Art Hotel here?
Krista Peel: We were living in San Francisco, and weren't really into the art there. It's kind of like the art that you'd expect to come out of a small town. So we wanted to get away from that, but at the same time, we didn't want to go to a city where the art scene was always based on the newest trend. So Philly was a good balance. We thought about going to Wyoming, too, but we decided we didn't want to make it like a retreat, and be by ourselves.
CP: Why is the residency so short?
Zak Starer: Right now, part of it's because it's in our home, and we can only be vagrants for so long.
KP: In the new place [in Kensington, where we'll move in October], the residencies will be closer to six weeks long. So there will be enough time to get going, to get on track, but not enough time to get too comfortable and have it feel like home.
CP: Right now you're running the Art Hotel like a for-profit business. Do you think that could change in the future?
KP: Yeah, we've went back and forth, and we can see ourselves having a board and doing it as a non-profit. We'd like to try this first, though, and either way our philosophy would be the same. Right now we're going to try to make it work with fundraisers and gatherings. It's hard to get grants when you're first starting, anyway ' so if we decide to change course five years down the road, it'll be right about the time we could feasibly start a non-profit.
CP: So why did you decide that one of only two requirements for the residency would be that the artists have to lecture about their pieces?
KP: Well, I personally like to listen to artists talk about their work, whether or not I even like the work.
ZS: The room we've been doing it in at the Free Library is weird ' it's even not AV-equipped, and people usually rent it for weddings. I like it, though. It's got a really great view.
CP: What are your day jobs?
KP: I make jewelry on Etsy, and I work at an old folk's community at 45th and Chestnut. I teach jewelry classes there, too.
ZS: I work in the print-making facilities at Moore College. It's a good 9-to-5er.
CP: Are your roles different at the Art Hotel?
KP: He's definitely the amazing organization man. The office guy, he does all the paperwork and takes care of all the documents. And I'm the one who cleans the place and is like, "Are you OK? Do you need towels?"
CP: How have the artists felt about living in your house? Did they find it weird?
KP: Not at all! Kelly said that on the first night she kept dreaming of colors, 'cause there are all these colors in our house, and that influenced her the next day.
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| Shawn Brackbill |
Last week, John Vettese wrote an article about the tight-lipped Allentown band Pissed Jeans, who said drab, bored things like "It's pretty much the same as the last album and "People will hear what they want to hear" about their new tracks. Regardless, we were pumped to see them at Pilam (3914 Spruce St., 201-452-0330) on Sat., Aug. 28 ' but then their van broke down, leaving us to believe that they totally hated and wanted nothing to with us, dear city. Not so! They'll be back on Fri., Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. at the same location. Click the jump to see the early MTV-inspired music video for that ice cream song Vettese talks about the piece.
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| John Hoey |
Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre is keeping super-busy this Live Arts/Fringe season: Not only is reality-show-parodying Kill Me Now a Live Arts headliner (think fake So You Think You Can Dance), the troupe is also co-producing Who Will Carry the Word?, an intense, movement-based play about 20 women in Auschwitz, trying to make it out alive. Talk about polar opposites.
Sez the show's press release:
Based upon the true story of Charlotte Delbo, Who Will Carry The Word? depicts the lives of 20 women sharing a barracks in Auschwitz.' Their goal: to keep the strongest of them alive so that someone can share their experiences with the world.' A celebration of the human spirit, Who Will Carry The Word? is a sobering and very moving portrait of the resilience of ordinary people placed in extraordinary ' and in this case, horrifying ' circumstances.
Who Will Carry The Word?, written in 1966, attempts here what so many Holocaust plays avoid: to describe the life inside the concentration camps with an unflinching eye.' As a survivor of Auschwitz, Delbo draws on austere poetic language and imagery to dramatize her eyewitness account of the horrors she and her contemporaries experienced.' The title Who Will Carry The Word? itself indicates Delbo's fascination with the idea of bearing witness to something indescribable and altogether unspeakable.' The 20 women giving voice to Delbo's language and observations not only carry the weight of the playwright's provocative words, but also the responsibility of honoring the over-six million Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled, and others murdered by the Nazis in the 1940s.
Who Will Carry The Word? (co-produced by Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre and OtherWORDS Theater) sold out during its run at Temple last year, so we suggest flocking early to the box office ' shows don't start till the 13th, but you'll want to get your tickets ahead of time.
Sept. 13 at 2, 4 and 7 p.m.; Sept. 15 and 16, 7 p.m.; Sept. 17 and 18, 7 and 9 p.m.; Sept. 19, 4 and 7 p.m.; $15, 2nd Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-413-1318, livearts-fringe.org.
there is a mistake on the fringe site. Melanie Stewart Dance theatre doesn't have anything to do with Who Will Carry the Word. It must have been a typo in the guide. Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre is producing Kill Me Now which opens this weekend.
Sorry. I made a huge mistake. melanie is in fact involved with this show. sorry for my mistake. go see this show too!!!!!
Laying down the opening track to The Roots' How I Got Over, due out in November.
(via Questo's always-excellent Twittering.)
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