Philadelphia City Paper, July 1st, 2010

c typaper [ P H I L A D E L P H I A ]

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FOOD | Like El Rey of light

MUSIC | Dave Posmontier—Posterity now! CANON | The Green Payback

P H I L A D E L P H I A’ S I N D E P E N D E N T W E E K LY N E W S PA P E R

July 8 - July 15, 2010 #1311 |

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N A S AKE

M T S QFE

+35

FROM S W E REVI S YEAR’S THI TIVAL FES

E C N A I L L A Y L O UNH

WITHDANGERAFTERDARK!

*

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www.joecanals.com

Visit our Website at:

SALE 7/7/10 – 8/3/10

George Fenton, composer and conductor Stunning images from the worldwide hit BBC television series along with the sweeping majestic original score will provide a thrilling finale to The Philadelphia Orchestra’s annual season at The Mann. We explore everything from the mountains to the oceans as Planet Earth composer George Fenton himself leads the Orchestra in an evening the whole family will enjoy.

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with THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA

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video extravaganza

July 29th | 8:30pm

manncenter.org 215/ 893-1999 Ticket stub valid for $2 discount on General Admission to the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Maximum 4 persons. Not valid with other offers.

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GREAT SEATS STILL AVAILABLE!

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city

CP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter

[ + 1] The state legislature passes a budget on

time. Good job! You know what? This is going right on the fridge!

[0]

Local summer schools dismiss students early in anticipation of 100-degree temperatures. So, just a heads up, nerds: The mean dumb kids are gonna be at the spraygrounds today.

[ - 1]

Stu Bykofsky, in a piece about President Obama’s recent moderate speech on illegal immigration, says the commander in chief must’ve attended “Stu-niversity.”

Nobody laughs, but Stu couldn’t care less.

Dude’s got tenure.

[ + 4] “You’re all scientists,” says teacher Andrew

Dunakin to a group of grade-schoolers enrolled in Philly’s Science in the Summer program. “At least according to the course requirements of Stu-niversity.”

[ + 2] Thirteen children become U.S. citizens at

EVAN M. LOPEZ

a Betsy Ross House ceremony. And, as such, quickly lose interest in the Betsy Ross House.

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[ + 3] Philadelphia will use more than $25 mil-

lion in federal grants to attack obesity and smoking epidemics. That’s enough money to buy gym memberships for every obese Philadelphian, but yeah, go buy up some strongly worded bus ads.

[ + 1] Teach for America begins its five-week training program in Philadelphia. Day one topic: Why Only One in Four of You Will Ever Get a Full-Time Teaching Job, and Why That Job Will Pay You One-Third of Arlene Ackerman’s Bonus.

[0]

A former gambling cheat is now on the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s payroll, teaching dealers how to spot others like him. Tip 1: Look for the words “Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board” on their pay stubs.

[ - 5]

State legislators pass a budget that includes projects honoring Sen. Arlen Specter and the late Rep. John Murtha. For Murtha: a granite scrapple sculpture; Specter: giant bronze flip-flops.

This week’s total: 5 | Last week’s total: 9

AMILLIONSTORIES Now with its own list of suspect words

I

n 1977, a man had a dream. He wanted to open a mail-order firearms shop in McKeesport, Pa., and he wanted to call it The God Damn Gun Shop. The neighborhood church ladies were none too amused, and the God-fearing Pennsylvania legislature quickly passed a law banning corporations from having names “that constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing or profane the Lord’s name.”Today, Pennsylvania is one of six states with antiblasphemy laws on their books.

In 2007, a Downingtown part-time filmmaker named George Kalman also had a dream. He wanted to incorporate a limited liability corporation to run his film business, and he wanted to name it “I Choose Hell Productions LLC” — an anti-suicide message, he told The New York Times last year, as in, a hellish life is better than offing yourself. But a week after he dispatched his incorporation forms, the Pennsylvania Department of State rejected his filing. That name, it seems, violated the state’s blasphemy law.

In February 2009, Kalman sued, contending that his First and 14th Amendment rights were being violated. On June 30, U.S. District Court Judge Michael M. Baylson struck down Pennsylvania’s law, in large part because the state left it to faceless paperpushers to determine what, exactly, blasphemy is. That much made the Inquirer.

Here’s a nugget of bureaucratic awesomeness that didn’t get so

much attention: In September 2005, the state’s Corporation Bureau wanted to nail down the legal definition of blasphemy. So, assistant counsel Martha Brown created a list of 23 “suspect words” to help employees decipher which corporation names ran afoul of the law. Eighteen of these words were your basic vulgarities.The remaining five were “Christ,” “damn,” “hell,” “God” and “Jesus.”

As Baylson noted in his ruling: “Ms. Brown … had not received any training or education regarding religion ….” Brown never shared that list with the clerks who review corporate filings.

In January 2006, Brown created List 2.0, which, in addition to the words on the first list, also contained “bull,” and an instruction that “[a]ny permutation of these words should be flagged for review as well as variations on the spelling of these words that would yield the same pronunciation.”

“Fucque Inc.” probably wouldn’t make the cut, then.

In her deposition in the case, Brown clarified how she would use these suspect words. In: “I Choose God,” or “I Reject Hell.” Out: “I Choose Hell,” or, probably, “Your God is a Lie Deli and Catering.”

This new list, however, didn’t make the rounds until July 2009, long

Won’t somebody think of the children?

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AMILLIONSTORIES <<<

after Kalman’s application had been rejected.

But between October 2005 and October 2009, with seemingly nothing in the way of guidelines, the Bureau’s clerks deigned fit to reject at least 11 corporate names, I Choose Hell LLC included — and, yes, hilarity ensued.

Some rejectees were fairly obvious: Nuclear Shit House Records, for instance, or Shitz & Giggles Inc. Others were subtler in their profanity: Got Dam Magazine LLC; Hel-Mary Goodies LLC. Also denied: Hellraisers MC Philadelphia Inc., a motorcycle club largely composed of area police officers.

And, our personal fave: Asociacion de Pastores de Reading, a group of Reading church leaders that in March 2007 sought to incorporate as a nonprofit. Why were they turned down? Because in their application, they translated their name to English as “Reading Pastors Ass.” The group resubmitted its name and was eventually approved, but still, nothing better illustrates the inanity of allowing Harrisburg desk jockeys to determine what will affront your virgin ears.

Of course, the state may yet appeal, because, you know, won’t somebody think of the children? ³ GREAT MOMENTS IN LEGISLATING

E VA N M . L O P E Z

Yes, our state legislature finally, for the first time in eight years,

managed to pass a budget on time. Hooray.

But let’s not get too excited: In reality, this was less an achievement and more like that time your dad showed up at your birthday party for the first time ever — when you were turning 8 years old.

Also, he was drunk. And he brought his new 25-year-old mail-order bride. And he gave you an age-inappropriate present.

So what is Harrisburg’s age-inappropriate present to us? Well, besides a project honoring Sen. Arlen Specter and tons of walking-around money, we received no tax on cigars or smokeless tobacco, lots of cash for new prisons, $5.5 million in library cuts, $1.1 million in child care cuts and … oh God, this is too depressing, and you know this already, right?

OK, then. Let’s move on to a lesser-reported casualty in the state budget: free HIV testing.

According to ACT UP Philadelphia, an HIV/AIDS activist group, the new budget has slashed HIV prevention money statewide by $300,000 — and that’s on top of $1.7 million in cuts last year. ACT UP predicts this will lead to nearly 8,000 fewer Pennsylvanians receiving HIV tests annually. Hardest-hit will be the smaller organizations geared toward minorities and the homeless. Unless outside grants come in, these groups say, they’ll have to eliminate their free HIV testing programs altogether.

Without free testing, activists fear that many Philadelphians won’t know they have HIV until it’s too late. “We’re very successful in getting first-time testers. Without that money, a lot of people are going to fall through the cracks,” says Ron Sy, executive director of AIDS Services in Asian Communities. “I’m terrified.” ³ BRIBES

✚ This week’s report by Jeffrey C. Billman, Holly Otterbein and Andrew

Thompson. E-mail us at amillionstories@citypaper.net.

By Isaiah Thompson

DO THE VULTURE! ³ I WAS STRETCHING the hamstrings on Kelly

Drive this holiday weekend, when mine eyes beheld a wondrous sight: men and women dancing — on skates — like I’d never seen. It is amazing, and they do it every Sunday at Lloyd Hall.

But as I gazed this late afternoon, I noticed another performance: A small boy was trying to get a drink at the public fountain, but couldn’t reach it. There is a cement block by the fountain, presumably for this reason — but it’s located on the wrong side.

To drink, the kid had to lean his entire torso over the back of the fountain, curl in his head and sip at the water from upside down.

I call this the Vulture, and kids perform it all the time at that spot. Thing is, there’s a kid-size fountain right next to it that’s been broken since last summer.

A woman came by, a troupe of little girls in tow, doing a very distinctive dance herself: the I-Haveto-Pee. She pulled on the Lloyd Hall bathroom door, only to find it locked — although this was well before sundown, on a holiday weekend.

A shadow crossed her face: Besides the only water fountain, Lloyd Hall hosts the only public bathroom for miles.

There was nary a port-o-let in sight.

“The park could do better,” observed bystander Martin Emery, who’d watched the scene with pity.

“The people are here, but there could be more here for them.”

Indeed: Kelly Drive is supposed to be the crown jewel of our park system. It sees nearly 30,000 visitors a week — but can be surprisingly bereft of the barest essentials, especially for families.

A survey by the Bicycle Coalition found water and bathrooms rated first and second among mostwanted amenities, respectively.

Fairmount Park Executive Director Mark Focht says that parts are “on order” for the broken fountain — but he can’t say when it will be fixed.

He points out, as well, that the bathrooms were open until 5 p.m. that day, as on all summer weekends.

But that’s long before sunset, and it leaves a lot of park users potty-less.

Yes, Fairmount Park’s budget is woefully small.

And much to its credit, the park is adding a couple fountains and another bathroom.

But these things are good only if they’re working and accessible. Right now, the Vulture and the IHave-To-Pee are all-too-common sights. ✚ Isaiah Thompson has mastered the Vulture. E-mail him for lessons at isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net.

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There are a thousand reasons to be glad that Philly isn’t Seattle, or San Francisco, or some other West Coast township that is totally in love with itself.You can swear around (and usually at) children, for instance, or smoke without falling victim to annoying passiveaggressive reproach. But the West Coast also breeds eco-friendliness, and as circle-jerky as the Western version may be, they don’t have to bribe their citizens with tchotchkes to throw food in one bin and plastic in another. We do.

(Although, to be fair, Seattle charges its residents by the volume of trash they leave on the side of the road, rather than a flat fee, to encourage conservation. And in San Francisco, they’ll fine you $100 if you don’t separate recyclable or compostable materials from your garbage. Seriously.)

Last week, Philadelphia finished rolling out its Recycling Rewards program, which rewards people with points commensurate with the amount they recycled toward discounts off their deodorant or whatever. The city began the program in February in North Philly and finished in the Roxborough/Chestnut Hill area.

Apparently, it’s gone well. Mayor’s office spokeswoman Maura Kennedy tells us that recycling rates have risen from an abysmal 6 percent of its waste before the program started to a substantially less abysmal 20 percent in the targeted neighborhoods (as of press time, we were still awaiting harder numbers). That’s still a lot less than Seattle’s 50 percent or San Francisco’s 72 percent — perhaps we should consider a more punitive approach — but it’s a far sight better than where we were a few months ago.

That’s some good news, right?

manoverboard!

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[ is the dean of stu-niversity ]

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loosecanon

By Bruce Schimmel

GROWTH INDUSTRY ³ TROY JOHNSON HAS wrestled with some of Philadelphia’s biggest, baddest weeds, and he knows what it takes to get them out. “It takes a man,” says the 20-year-old Kensington native, broadly smiling behind a wispy beard and black-rimmed glasses.

Eight weeks of tangling with Philly’s fiercest weeds (“many taller than me”) in Philadelphia’s historic Bartram’s Garden has taken 20 pounds off Johnson’s now-lanky frame.

“But after you see what you’ve done,” he says, as we walk past tidy paths and manicured vistas, “the result is just awesome.”

Johnson is one of four in the first class of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s “Roots to Reentry” program. The pilot program trains nonviolent prisoners to be landscape workers.

By yanking weeds, Johnson hopes to bootstrap himself out of a life of crime that began at 15. At a recent graduation ceremony under Bartram’s majestic trees, Johnson made a promise to a crowd that included his mother, niece, grandmother and girlfriend: “I won’t let you down.”

“In the beginning, he was a boy,” Johnson’s mom says. “Now, he’s a man.” During his 20-month incarceration, Johnson also earned a high school diploma — his mom brought it from home, since he’d not yet seen it. But what pleased graduates, families and officials most was the promise of what would come next. After their release, all four ex-offenders would get jobs through the program.

“Let the jobs begin!” Johnson’s mom declared as the ceremony came to a close. There was much joy because jobs for ex-offenders are scarce. Prison officials say that if ex-cons can get any work at all, it’s usually flipping burgers. “Roots to Reentry” will hopefully offer something better than a dead end in fast food.

But their hopes depend on whether urban horticulture can ramp up fast enough — and that’s a stretch. In the last decade of PHS’ Philadelphia Green, which includes the City Harvest gardening program inside prison walls [Cover Story, “The Green Payback,” April 27, 2006], only about 120 jobs are created on a yearly basis. At best, that’s a tiny drop in a big bucket. Every year, about 40,000 prisoners are released in Philadelphia, and an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 ex-offenders need some help.

To spur companies to hire ex-offenders, the city offers up to $5 million in tax credits yearly. Astonishingly, over the three years of the program — as the Inquirer recently reported — not a single employer has applied for the tax credit, and no hires have been made.

Still, PHS hopes that a fresh crop of gardening jobs will come through dozens of small, private landscaping companies who work for the horticultural giant.

One of the four graduates did get a permanent, full-time job at Bartram’s Garden through KJK Associates, a PHS contractor.

Johnson and the others, however, were offered less-permanent work at KJK. Like many city landscaping companies, KJK is a lean operation with a full-time staff of less than a dozen.

So even with his new high school diploma and a horticultural certificate, Johnson knows he’s hardly out of the woods. Still, for him, pulling weeds beats shoveling fries. It makes him proud.

“I first thought gardening was going to be nerdy, women’s work,” says Johnson. “But this makes me feel like a man.” (bruce@schimmel.com)

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“I thought gardening was going to be nerdy, women’s work.”

feedback From our readers

YOU’RE TOO KIND Just wanted to write to tell you how much I enjoyed your piece in this week’s City Paper [Naked City, “Ahead Lies the Reckoning,” Jeffrey C. Billman, June 24]. I feel like the topic of your article is something that you try to learn in school but it just ends up being too confusing or uninteresting. Your piece tackled the debt in a straightforward, easy-to-follow way. And I felt engaged the whole time, so it’s a start. I only regret reading it too late; I would’ve liked to attend the [AmericaSpeaks] forum [on June 26]. Anyway, thanks.

Forget poli-sci classes, I just need CP! Juliana VIA E-MAIL

YOU’RE NOT KIND AT ALL Too bad Jeffrey Billman can’t get serious about national debt himself.

Setting aside that he doesn’t know how discredited the theory of the reduction of deficit spending as causing the continuation of the depression, Billman continues spewing the same tired tripe of blaming Bush for everything and defense spending as the center of our problems. Even eliminating all defense spending would not solve our problems.

Instead, he downplays the largest source of spending, triple that of defense, namely, non-discretionary entitlements (excludes Social Security and medical). At $2 trillion, this budget area contains the largest source of potential savings to the government, yet nary a word about it by Billman. That speaks volumes as this piece is opinion disguised as analysis.

Jay Borowsky SOCIETY HILL

[Ed. note: Non-entitlement mandatory spending, meaning programs and expenditures that continue year to year without congressional reauthorization, comprised 18 percent of the 2010 budget, or about $882 billion, not $2 trillion. While that is indeed more than the year’s defense budget, much of the recent increase in these costs — things like unemployment and food stamps — is linked to the recession: As people get laid off, they become eligible for federal assistance. As for the writer’s contention that spending cuts didn’t trigger a double-dip in the Great Depression, that’s simply wrong: Between 1933 and 1937, the U.S. economy grew by 40 percent.

After a wave of spending cuts, and the advent of the new Social Security tax, the economy shrank 3.4 percent and unemployment rose markedly in 1938.] ✚ Send all letters to Feedback, City Paper, 123 Chestnut St., 3rd Floor,

Phila. PA 19106; fax us at 215-599-0634; or e-mail editorial@citypaper.net.

Submissions may be edited for clarity and space and must include an address and daytime phone number.

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[ politics as unusual ]

WHEN ELECTIONS DON’T MATTER NEAL SANTOS

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The city Democratic Party doesn’t always care what voters think. By Holly Otterbein

FAIR AND SQUARE: 40th Ward Democrats consider Tracey Gordon too disruptive to honor her May 18 election.

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D

Call me today to see how you can save when you combine your auto policies.

(Spend more on your honeymoon).

Thomas Stephenson (215) 564-6336 2001 Walnut St. Philadelphia tomstephenson@allstate.com

Insurance and savings offered only through select company and subject to availability and qualifications. Savings applies to most major coverages. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company: Northbrook, IL. ©2009 Allstate Insurance Company.

uring May’s primary election, Republicans finally glommed the city’s attention for the first time in a half-century — by thoroughly self-destructing. In order to squash a small, but ballooning cadre of party newcomers, the Republican City Committee (RCC) filed ballot-petition challenges against members of its own party, rewrote bylaws to make it harder to elect its own committee persons, and declined to recognize a dozen of its own ward leaders.

Now a small group says the Democratic City Committee (DCC) treats its rookies the same way.

This winter, six residents of the 40th Ward, in Southwest Philadelphia, decided to do an innocent enough thing: They ran for Democratic committee positions. None of them — Tracey Gordon, Than Lim, Donald Henry, Tony McCloud, Beverly Austin and Robin Akers — were committee persons at the time, and many were utterly fresh to city politics.

They say they wanted to make their community a better place.

Gordon, for instance, who serves as president of the community group Southwest Concerned Citizens, thought she might able to lift the voter participation rate in her ward. At about 8 percent during nonpresidential election years, it ranks among the lowest in the city. Henry, meanwhile, wanted to see fewer young people getting into trouble.

“The ward doesn’t place enough emphasis on finding something for the youth here to do,” he says.

The city Democratic Party didn’t share the group’s zeal. In March, Steven Kaplan, an attorney for the DCC, filed ballot petition challenges against all six.

“In some of these divisions where they filed challenges, there wasn’t even another committee person running,” says Damon Roberts, the group’s pro-bono attorney. “These were good people they were challenging, too. Henry is president of the Eastwick Dynasty Dragons Youth Organization; McCloud owns a small business.”

The DCC says that it took the fledglings to court because they didn’t have enough legitimate signatures of registered Democrats to get on the ballot. (You need 10.) Gordon, however, remembers things a little differently. In her telling, Ann Brown, one of the two Democratic leaders of the 40th Ward, chided the group for running against existing committee persons.

“She told me, ‘You didn’t ask my permission to run,’” says Gordon.

“Where in America do you have to ask to run for election?” (Brown denies saying that.)

Everyone in the group was either kicked off the ballot or withdrew from the race. Well, almost: On March 22, the Court of Common Pleas denied the DCC’s challenge to Gordon. On Election Day in May, she won with 38 votes.

But on June 7, at the ward’s first post-election meeting, deputy chair Gregory Moses suggested that the committee oust Gordon.

He cited a bylaw to support his position: “If at any time in the opinion of the majority of the entire ward committee, a member is unfaithful to the Democratic Party and the best interests of the party, or refuses, fails or neglects to work in harmony with the ward committee, the ward committee shall be empowered to remove said person from its membership.”

The committee agreed, and unanimously voted Gordon out. A police officer — Brown says she called the cops ahead of time to make sure that Gordon went quietly — escorted her outside. Brown readily admits that her animus was motivated, in part, by Gordon’s support of the five other outsiders who also ran for committee positions. Brown adds that when she got Gordon a job with then-Mayor John Street’s Office of Community Services, Gordon lost it because she was “disruptive.” Gordon says she was, in fact, laid off.

“She filed committee people against the ward,” says Brown. “She tried to take over the ward.” (The 40th Ward, it’s worth noting, has a total of 102 available Democratic committee positions.)

Gordon asked for a copy of the bylaw she broke. That request was denied. She also phoned the DCC, Philly Democratic kingpin U.S. Rep. Bob Brady and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party about the meeting, but heard zip back.

“How can a ward go against the will of the citizens who elected me?” she asks.

Quite easily, it turns out: According to Jonathan David, director of voter services at the Committee of Seventy, it “may not seem right, but it’s legal.”

“How can a ward go against the will of the citizens who elected me?”

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W a n t M o r e ? n e e D M o r e ? W e ’ v e G o t M o r e Q F e s t r e v i e W s at C i t y pa p e r . n e t / C o v e r s t o r y .

venue key: re=ritz east, 125 s. seCond st., 215-925-7900 | rB=ritz at the Bourse, 400 ranstead st., 215-925-7900 Following are reviews of movies premièring at QFest, July 8-18. Up to the day of the show, tickets may be purchased in person at tla video locations (noon-9 p.m.); by phone at 267-765-9800, ext. 4, or online at qfest.com; by noon Monday through Friday and 9 p.m. the previous night on saturday and sunday. same-day tickets are available at the screening venue. tickets are $10. 0recommended. 0 0 highly recommended.

Adrift

aDriFt The title is a particularly apt descriptor for this meandering slow-simmer of a Hanoi-set marriage-and-manners drama. Adrift centers on simple Duyen and worldly, melancholy writer Cam. When Duyen’s marriage to man-child Hai remains unconsummated weeks later, best girlfriend Cam instructs her to deliver a letter to Tho, a lady’s man Cam seems to pine for herself. And even though Tho forces himself on Duyen, she later accepts a job, at Cam’s urging, with Tho, with whom she has her first sexual encounter. Thus awakened, Duyen seems as despondent as Cam. Adrift is doused in Hanoi’s heavy rains, but the glacial pace is a fitting analog for the shifting mores in socially conservative Vietnam. Though rife with sexual tension, there are no gay or lesbian themes — other than perhaps the unspoken fact that Cam and Duyen would be better off with each other than with any of the men in their lives. —Brian Howard (RB, 7/14, 5:15pm)

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0 Bearcity

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shorts qfest

So. Many. Bear. Puns. But what else could you expect from BearCity, a Sex and the City-esque look at the bear community in New york City? Written by QFest programmer lawrence Ferber, BearCity follows Tyler (joe Conti), a twink who must come out of the closet again, this time as a lover of all things pudgy and hairy. He finds solace with Fred (Brian Keane) and Brent (Stephen Guarino, The Big Gay Sketch Show), a married couple who can’t decide whether to open up their relationship (their attempt is gut-busting). All is well until Tyler falls for the hot-to-trot Roger (Gerald McCullouch), who refuses to accept his desire for the rail-thin Tyler because it will totally mess with his rep. Although adorable and better than the average QFest rom-com, the crush interaction played out while bowling is a little much. —Molly Eichel (RE, 7/9, 7pm; RE, 7/10, 5pm)

0 BeyonD Gay: the politics oF priDe “A pride parade isn’t the end of our struggle,” says Ken Coolen, organizer for the Vancouver Pride Parade. “It’s just the beginning.” Coolen’s an earnest and charming guide for this documentary’s survey of pride demonstrations around the world. Noting the legislative advances in Canada and the u.S., Coolen heads to Colombo, Sri lanka, where Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, director of Equal Ground, points out that homosexuality remains a criminal offense (as it is in more than 70 nations). In Moscow, he meets with Tomasz Baczkowski, who organizes pride displays even when the mayor denies legal permits. And in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where millions march on Pride Day, Coolen sees that massive street parties create their own risks. Heartening and vibrant, the documentary bounces from place to place, using split screens to show the hard and often clever work of queers trying to change attitudes in places where they can be arrested, beaten and killed for being out. —Cindy Fuchs (RB, 7/11, 5pm)

BlooMinGton Former child television star jackie Kirk (Sarah Stouffer) is finally attempt-

ing to live a normal life, leaving her Hollywood home for a Midwestern college. But her stardom isn’t that easy to shake, leading to uneasy relations with her fellow students, made worse when jackie becomes the latest paramour of the campus’s infamously icy abnormal psych prof, Catherine Stark (Allison McAtee). Despite making a habit of seducing her young female students (she aggressively comes on to jackie within minutes of their first meeting), Stark is never depicted as predatory, and the affair unfolds as a bittersweet coming-of-age tale rather than a sordid scandal. Writer-director Fernanda Cardoso is a veteran reality-TV editor and swathes her characters’ love-hate tangle with fame in a wistful glow, but the languid pace and bland supporting cast lend the film a “Very Special Episode” air. —Shaun Brady (RE, 7/17, 7:15pm; RB, 7/18, 2:30pm)

0 DaviD’s BirthDay Argue if you like, but reading too much into lGBTQ issues in David’s Birthday is a fool’s game. yes, married man Matteo (Massimo Poggio) falls in love with his friends’ grotesquely wellsculpted son David (Thyago Alves) while on vacation. And the film plays out that premise, proving that attempts to fight your natural sexuality result in destruction and guilt. But honestly, that’s queer cinema pablum — a seemingly de rigueur diversion in this kind of drama.

No, David’s Birthday, as its classical and mythical allusions point out, is really about how star-crossed, devastating love often found in art lives up to its hype only when it stays in that world, where it can’t hurt us. Out here, someone’s getting burned. Nice idea. unfortunately, that nice idea is buried in writing, production and acting that is in every way unremarkable; David’s Birthday is only OK. —Eric Henney (RE; 7/17, 12:15pm; RE, 7/18, 7pm)

0 Dearest Mother Growing up queer in Spain wasn’t always easy for Alfredito. Now in his 60s, he chats candidly with a statue of a black Virgin Mary in the church as he cleans and prepares its clothes for procession.

The film seamlessly weaves vignettes of Alfredito’s past — evading his abusive

father, losing his virginity and a recurring scene of a young Alfredito running to his mother after a violent storm. The tempest becomes a symbol of whatever challenges Alfredito faces, whether it’s being drafted into the military, bullied by boys or beaten by his father. The film hits the mark when Alfredito grows into Alfredo and realizes that his mother won’t always be there to comfort him.

Alfredito is a charming construction, and the three actors who play him in different stages of his life consistently portray that bubbly personality. At times, the movie feels like an overly emotional telenovela, but overall, Dearest Mother is simple and heartwarming. —Neal Santos (RB, 7/11, 12:15pm; RB, 7/12, 9:15pm)

gracefully tackles the inherent discrepancy between homosexuality and religious orthodoxy, without choosing a side. Eyes Wide Open details the forbidden relationship between Aaron, a pensive family man and butcher, and his young apprentice, Ezri, in jewishOrthodox jerusalem. For Aaron, his newfound proclivities are as much a part of him as his religious beliefs.

0 DeleteD scenes

Thus, the very thing that complicates his relationship is the filter by which he understands it. Tabakman is able to present this issue without delineating it too plainly — scenes of Talmudic study frame Aaron’s inner conflict, as does sparse dialogue coupled with intensely emotional acting. But neither device directly addresses it. However, the film is not just for jewish and/or gay audiences. As Aaron begins to lose control of the things he once held so dear, he must ask himself an important and universal question: Should social order be sacrificed for one’s own happiness? —Matthew Cahn (RE, 7/10, 7:15pm; 7/14, 7pm)

Fest mainstay Todd Verow structures his latest DIy production as a series of outtakes from an “unfinished, untitled dysfunctional-relationship drama.” The result, presented as a series of numbered, titled fragments that begin with a “Play All” command and culminate with an alternate ending, isn’t as nonlinear as the approach suggests, though it does offer some cover to the no-budgeter’s erratic quality and often inaudible dialogue. Of course, that doesn’t explain away those characteristics in every other film Verow has made over the past decade and a half — he’s a filmmaker

Fashion victiM

who earns almost grudging respect for his obstinate refusal (or simple inability) to improve the production value of his efforts. Here that uneven eye is applied to a sometimes tender, often rough love story peppered with plenty of raw sex, which stretches the concept a bit, as it’s hard to believe Verow has ever discarded a frame of such footage. —S.B. (RE, 7/15, 9:15pm; RB, 7/17, 2:15pm)

0 0 eyes WiDe open In his debut film, Haim Tabakman

Charlie Chaplin wasn’t always able to strike the delicate balance between comedy and commentary in his political films, but managed often enough to forgive his occasional lapses into sanctimony. French writer-directoractor Gérard jugnot is no Chaplin, although Fashion Victim certainly catches him trying. jugnot stars as a 16th-century fashion designer sent by the French king to Inquisition-terrorized Spain, unwisely accompanied by an entourage that includes an Arab, a jew, a bomb-wielding Protestant and at least one “sodomite.” The resultant broadly played antics allow plenty of opportunity for pratfalls, anachronisms, mincing and speechifying about religious intolerance, but little in the >>> continued on page 16

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w e ’ r e g i v i n g i t a w ay ! g o t o c i t y pa p e r . n e t / c r i t i c a l m a s s F o r q F e s t t i c k e t g i v e a w ay s .

From Beginning to End

way of actual laughs or drama. In case the present-day parallels aren’t quite evident enough from the explicit preachiness (and a quick shot, in the closing moments, toward our own shores), jugnot begins the film with a hit-you-over-the-head Sacha Guitry quote. —S.B. (RE, 7/11, 9:30pm; RE, 7/13, 7:15pm)

Fiona’s script The problem with Fiona’s Script, a drama about the bisexual title character’s missteps after a bad breakup, is that it feels too much like real life, without possessing the charms of a bawdy reality show or a manicured doc.

Most of the dialogue is small talk, the characters drudge through everyday minutiae and Fiona never finds meaning from her failed relationship. yet for all her abrasive realness, she is still as flat as a middle-schooler’s oboe.

We don’t know why Fiona is traumatized by her ex-boyfriend, nor the reason she’s neurotically nervous around her new lady-beau, l. It’s too bad, because some of the film’s delightfully lazy, saturated, slow-motion shots are so beautiful they mirror those in another visual stunner, Elephant. —Holly Otterbein (RB, 7/9, 5:30pm; RE, 7/12, 7pm)

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From Beginning to end Thomás and Francisco are half brothers who share an uncommonly close relationship — so close that, as they grow older (specifically, old enough that the child actors portraying them can be replaced with well-built twentysomethings Rafael Cardoso and joão Gabriel Vasconcellos, respectively), the relationship turns sexual. Oddly, no one seems to object much — their shared mother is tacitly accepting if not outright encouraging. Francisco’s father turns up long enough to express misgivings at their initial intimacy, then disappears. Writer/director Aluisio Abranches simply uses their blood ties to plaster a façade of taboo over a progression of scenes more concerned with attractive guys making out against a variety of picturesque backdrops — from splashing in the ocean to dancing in an Argentinean nightclub. But the scenes proceed with all the momentum and substance of flipping through this year’s Hot Incestuous Boys of Brazil calendar. —S.B. (RE, 7/15, 7pm; RE, 7/17, 2:30pm)

0 0 Handsome Harry Handsome Harry is at odds with itself. It’s beautifully crafted yet, at times, uncomfortable and ugly. The cinematography is expressive but staid. The writing, which chronicles Harry’s (jamey Sheridan) attempt to come to terms with the consequences of a long-ago betrayal, teeters between authentic emotion and melodrama. Even the actors, who give solid performances, roil up against each other. Special mention goes to Sheridan, whose biggest accomplishment was to make me wonder why his career isn’t bigger. The road-movie structure seems like an easy way out and the stern dissection of American machismo and male sexuality that is director Bette Gordon’s bread-and-butter feels like finger-wagging. What saves the movie is its ambivalence over personal redemp-

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tion, which is here depicted as tough and unguaranteed. Harsh, maybe. But it makes the film empathetic. —E.H. (RB, 7/11, 7:30pm; RE, 7/14, 5pm)

little girl in Argentina. Short, sad and cinematographically sublime, this film deserves an audience. —Patrick Rapa (RB, 7/10, 3pm)

Howl

0 0 leo’s room

This Allen Ginsberg biopic, by documentarians Rob Epstein and jeffrey Friedman (The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175), is dragged down by a series of fatal misconceptions. Its worst offense is the silly digital animation used to illustrate excerpts from Ginsberg’s titular poem — you’d be better off closing your eyes and listening to the audio book — but there are more, including the oddly defensive decision to build the movie around the 1956 obscenity trial of lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was busted for selling the book. james Franco’s Ginsberg is absent from the star-studded legal

Leo’s Room is a charming coming-ofage film buoyed by a well-written, sparse script and strong soundtrack. leo (Martín Rodríguez), the selfexplorer, is weighed down by his true desire to be with men (mostly conveyed through long silences and heavy sighs), but continues to parade his hetero dating partners around in public. leo’s stoner housemate is the only one who gets a glimpse of his double life — and he couldn’t care less who his roomie decides to screw.

Rodríguez makes leo real and sympathetic; uruguayan director Enrique Buchichio keeps the ambience and atmosphere heavy without being overbearing. —Janey Zitomer (RE, 7/12, 7:15pm; RE, 7/14, 5pm)

0 le tigre on tour

proceedings, which feature jeff Daniels and Mary-louise Parker as witnesses for the prosecution and jon Hamm as Ferlinghetti’s defense counsel. Much of Ginsberg’s dialogue derives from interviews, which means that an ungodly percentage of the movie is devoted to watching people sitting and talking.

Some documentaries can’t avoid the predominance of talking heads, but there’s no reason a fiction feature should have that problem.—S.A. (RE, 7/9, 9:45pm; RB, 7/11, 2:30pm)

0 0 tHe last summer oF la Boyita Annoyed by her growth-spurting older sister, little jorgelina (played with surprising depth by actor Guadalupe Alonso) decides to skip the beach and spend her summer out in the country.

But her Tom-and-Becky adventures with shy farmhand Mario slowly become strained thanks to a gently unraveling gender-identity plot twist. like any good coming-of-age drama, julia Solomonoff’s Boyita can trigger pangs of instant nostalgia with the tiniest of gestures: a galloping horse, an acoustic guitar ponderously strummed, a plastic toy cast aside on a bed. By the end credits I’d forgotten I wasn’t once a

The best rock ’n’ roll docs are fraught with conflict. But Le Tigre on Tour, chronicling the 2004 farewell tour by the band with the roller-skate jams, is devoid of any (save for de facto leader Kathleen Hanna’s agita about making fun of Slipknot). So what’s left? A portrait of three women who get along freakishly well, giggle and rock the face off anyone who comes to see them.

Well-shot performances of songs like “TKO” and “Deceptacon” are interspersed with talking-head moments

by Hanna, johanna Fateman and “the dyke with the moustache” jD Samson reflecting on the band’s power, and scenes of them fooling around in the hotel gym and getting interviewed one. more. time. about how Hanna knew Kurt Cobain. But there’s no mention of their major-label switch for their final album, This Island, or why they decided to end the band in the first place. Someone who doesn’t dig le Tigre will be lost to the power of the band and this movie, but riot grrrls — both current and lapsed — can’t help but get that tingly teenage sensation every time the ladies start to play.

—M.E. (RB, 7/13, 7:30pm)

0 a marine story Ned Farr’s uneven drama about a lesbian Marine booted from the Corps probably won’t turn into a milestone in

the war against “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but it does treat the subject with rare urgency and heart. Tough-as-nails Alex (Dreya Weber) flashes back to the unfair circumstances of her honorable discharge while trying to return to civilian life in her one-pub, one-sheriff California town. Of course, some local rednecks and methheads take exception to the presence of this smart-

talkin’, hard-punchin’ broad. And when the aforementioned sheriff asks Alex to put local ne’er-do-well Saffron (Paris Pickard — a rumored Paris Hilton hook-up for a hot minute) through a sweaty tough-love boot camp, well, the movie gets moving in interesting and occasionally unpredictable ways. A Marine Story is smart and good-looking, but suffers from its claustrophobic mood and a sometimes suffocating seriousness. But hey, that’s life in a small town. —P.R. (RE, 7/9, 7:30pm; RE, 7/11, 2:30pm)

0 0 tHe owls Opening with a short series of oldschool demonstrations — anti-war, pro-queer — Cheryl Dunye’s new film is not what it seems. That is, it’s not just the story of middle-aging lesbians, former activists — Mj (V.S. Brodie) and Carol (Dunye) and band members Iris (Guinevere Turner) and lily (lisa Gornick) — still sorting out what’s at stake in their relationships. And it’s not just about their efforts to cover up the murder of a visitor a year before.

It’s also a frankly brilliant breakdown of gender roles (femme and butch), defined by different generations: When Iraq war vet Skye (Skyler Cooper) arrives, asking questions and unsettling their dynamics, the film becomes something else again. Best of all, it’s a Dunyementary: The actors break out of character to discuss what they’re doing. As everyone watches herself and each other, you’re caught watching too. Scripted by Sarah Schulman, this meditation on performances and expectations will make you think about all of it again. —C.F. (RE, 7/16, 7:15pm; RB, 7/18, 12:15pm) >>> continued on page 18

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shorts qfest The People I’ve Slept With

0 Piggies Tomek (Filip Garbacz) is a baby-faced, sharp 14-year-old living in a poor border town in Poland. He predictably goes through standard coming-of-age issues: attempting to please argumentative parents, doing homework for other people and winning the affection of Marta, a simple girl focused on material wealth.

But the lure of the affluent German lifestyle is too tempting for Tomek, and one poor decision leads to another as he spirals into “swinki,” or prostitution and boy-trafficking. That’s a heavy topic, emotionally, but Piggies never delves deeply into it. Instead, director Robert Glinski skillfully depicts his controversial subject matter without shoving it in our faces, balancing what to show with what not to. —N.S. ( RB, 7/10, 12:30pm; RB, 7/13, 5:15pm)

marries a rich landowner (Michael Culkin). After first assuring Anne they’ll reunite when her much-older husband dies, Mariana consistently reneges, eventually conceding that they cannot be together because “this is the way the world is and we cannot change it.” Anne disagrees. Shot like most BBC productions in washed-out tones, Anne Lister is a rote costume drama, only with more lady-lovin’.

While there are whispers of how Anne’s community reacts to her choices — like referring to her as Gentleman jack — the characters rarely appear to be part of the larger world. lacking a strong historical context, the movie remains a run-of-the-mill story of unrequited love. —M.E. (RE, 7/11, 7pm)

0 sTRaPPeD shuT uP anD Kiss Me Crudely directed and amateurishly acted, the ultra-low-budget Shut Up and Kiss Me is, nevertheless, a rather charming romance about gay dating.

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0 The PeoPle i’ve slePT WiTh Screwing dozens of people within the past two months has put mommy-to-be Angela (Karin Anna Cheung) in a bit of a debacle. With the help of her best gay friend, Gabriel (Wilson Cruz, aka Rickie from My So-Called Life), she embarks on a game of who’s left standing. With five candidates, including Mr. Hottie, 5-Second Guy and Mystery Man (played by everyone’s favorite blue Power Ranger, Archie Kao), Angela must do right by her family, and herself, by finding her baby’s daddy. While director Quentin lee does his best to liven a somewhat exhausted plot, areas of the script play out like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, right down to a Say Anything… reference. In the end, it is Cheung and Cruz’s chemistry as BFFs that saves the film. —Lauren Macaluso (RB, 7/9, 7:45 pm; RE, 7/12, 5pm)

Release An incarcerated priest (Daniel Brocklebank) falls in love with a prison guard (Garry Summers) in Release in this mediocre flick. It’s adequately executed and, save a few forced love scenes, competently acted. It’s even occasionally clever in the way it highlights our prejudices through the trap-like way it doles out backstory. And Release is genuinely progressive in portraying a priest who’s comfortable with his homosexuality. But none of this is particularly important to the plodding story. In 87 minutes, it touches on enough material for a couple of films and fails to handle any of it deeply. Character motivation seems like an afterthought, and too much energy is spent on cliché dream sequences, glib symbols and awful lines like “My soul is saved. By love.” —E.H. (RE, 7/16, 9:30pm; RB, 7/17, 5:15pm)

0 The secReT DiaRies of Miss anne lisTeR The requisite historical lesbian drama in this year’s QFest is james Kent’s adaptation of the 19th-century diaries of Anne lister (played by a strong Maxine Peake), who meticulously chronicled her life in partially coded journals. lister’s is a classic story: Anne falls in love with Mariana (Anna Madeley), who returns her affections only until it is inconvenient; then she

norm envelope and impose upon its audience a new, nontraditional kind of sexiness. unfortunately, the film isn’t as effective as its end product, and reveals holes that a 12-page picture book keeps nicely shrouded. As the frenetic, cameraloving Cordora drags us chronologically through the process of finding willing participants and sorting out logistics, questions arise: Why six different photographers? Why does he insist on “interviewing” his models before the shoots, making sure they’re properly groomed?

As Cordora’s mission becomes less and less clear, we’re left to wonder whether this is nothing more than a vanity project. Sometimes, less really is more.

—Carolyn Huckabay (RB, 7/14, 7:30pm)

Ben (writer Ronnie Kerr, drawing from experience) tries to overcome his commitment fears as he goes on a series of bad and/or dumb dates before connecting with Grey (Scott Gabelein). The picky Ben thinks he could be falling in love with Grey, who admits that he’s not good with fidelity. Their romance addresses issues of monogamy and HIV, without sensation or too much stupidity. Shut Up and Kiss Me features a genial cast — several of whom are not afraid to get full-frontally nude — and some amusing support from joey Russo and Kindall Kolins as Ben’s straight friends. Although the film requires some benevolence from demanding viewers, it is quite watchable until the cop-out ending. —Gary M. Kramer (RE, 7/13, 9:30pm; RE, 7/18, 12:15pm)

sTRaighT anD BuTch The idea behind Butch Cordora’s eyebrow-raising 2009 calendar is compelling: The former Philly talk-show host posed naked with a year’s worth of straight men — also naked — in scenes ranging from goofy to NSFW, in an ostensible effort to push the societal-

Strapped may appear to be the zillionth film about a male prostitute (Ben Bonenfant) looking for money, if not love and the meaning of life. But don’t be quick to dismiss this curiously affecting drama. Writer/director joseph Graham sensitively presents issues of masculinity and gay sexuality. Sure, the expected stereotypes are all on display — from the man who lives in a fantasy world, to the tweakers, to the straight-but-bicurious dude, the old lonely guy and the lost man who just wants to be loved.

But Graham stages these consecutive encounters (they all take place in the same apartment building) as a series of compelling two-handers in which emotions are revealed more nakedly than bodies during discreetly filmed sex acts.

Bonenfant oozes sex appeal and this stagy (but not in a bad way) film is a fine showcase for his talents.—GMK (RB, 7/17, 7:30pm; RE, 7/18, 9:15pm)

about bands in search of a scene as it is a scene in search of acceptance. —B.H. (RE, 7/14, 9:30pm)

violeT TenDencies The best part of Casper Andreas’ Violet Tendencies is the OMG, her! factor of figuring out that titular fag-hag Violet is Mindy Cohn, aka Natalie from The Facts of Life. But poor Violet isn’t happy: She doesn’t want a marriage proposal or white dress; the self-proclaimed fruit fly wants to get laid. unfortunately, her stud-heavy lifestyle isn’t helping (sweetheart, neither is telling your blind date that cheese will clog his anal cavity). A cameo by Village Voice columnist/man-abouttown Michael Musto, and Kim Allen as Violet’s bulimic supermodel-esque coworker Salome elicit some laughs, but Violet’s snuggle-bunny search, and its eventual culmination, are tied up just a little too neatly. Plus, where’s Tootie?

—M.E. (RE, 7/17, 9:30pm)

WilD aBouT haRRy Set in 1973, Gwen Wynne’s debut film deals with daughters’ reaction to their father’s semi-closeted homosexuality.

After the death of their mother, the Goodhart family moves to Cape Cod, where pretty girl Madeline (Danielle Savre) and her quirky younger sis Daisy (Skye McCole Bartusiak) go through the fitting-in motions. They are invited by school friends to secretly visit the gay bacchanalia Atlantic House, where Madeline spies her father Harry (Tate Donovan, complete with ’burns and a Brit accent) getting cozy with his live-in “business partner”

0 TaqWacoRe: The BiRTh of PunK islaM The u.S. Muslim punk scene was more or less willed into existence by author/scholar Michael Muhammad Knight’s 2003 novel The Taqwacores, which imagined a Buffalo Muslim punk house. Omar Majeed’s documentary follows Knight and a handful of bands (including The Kominas, Vote Hezbollah and girl group Secret Trial Five, led by openly gay Sena Hussain) inspired by The Taqwacores’ publication on a tour across America and later to Pakistan, but it feels a bit artificial. There’s a hard-to-deny sense, as these bands play before small and sometimes hostile crowds (for instance, an open mic at the Islamic Society of North America convention), that Taqwacore is as much

Mr. Gibbs (Rent’s Adam Pascal). Hurt and confused, Madeline tries to hook pops up with any available divorcée (like Clueless’ Stacey Dash and Mad About You’s Anne Ramsey) willing to boozily throw themselves at Harry’s unwilling feet. Wynne’s film is uneven in tone, indecisive about whether it’s a quirky comedy or a family’s dramatic coming-of-age. —M.E. (RB, 7/12, 7:30pm; RB, 7/16, 5:15pm) >>> See page 20 for Danger After Dark shorts

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shorts danger after dark remains is glib condemnation. —Sam Adams (RB, 7/11, 10pm)

0 enTer The voiD

Bit Tits Zombie 3-D

0 Amer I almost feel bad for not loving Amer: It’s a gorgeous yet nasty spectacle for both the ears and eyes. It’s brave, too, weaving together three chaotic and nearly wordless episodes about a woman’s sexual awakening in an admirable, if naïve, crack at essentialism, and its attempts to build on the innovations of Buñuel, leone and, most obviously, giallo filmmakers like Argento will warm any fan’s heart. Sadly, it’s kind of a hack job. Now and again, the violently erotic sequences in Amer succeed in evolving the surreal trances and unsettling voyeurism their forebears made famous. But these moments are too often followed up by calculated signs and allusions that dole out self-aggrandizing rewards for the enlightened viewers who understand them. In the end, Amer’s energy collapses into pedantry. It’s academe billed as orgasm; a film for armchair theorists, all of whom think I missed the point. —Eric Henney (RB, 7/14, 10pm)

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0 Big TiTs ZomBie 3-D Though it’s cause for international celebration based on title alone, Takao Nakano’s answer to jenna jameson vehicle Zombie Strippers! — meaning it, too, is a bloody undead campfest starring a prominent adult film star — is also a riot to watch. Based on a popular manga, Big Tits Zombie follows the buxom travails of Rena (japanese porn icon Sora Aoi), an exotic dancer who gets stuck at a remote spa resort (“It’s like Texas in japan!”) where the entertainers outnumber the customers. Boredom is the rule — until bitchy, combative, Bataille-quoting rival Maria (Mari Sakurai) discovers a collection of occult literature in the basement and inadvertently raises the dead, forcing Rena to bust out her latent chainsaw slaying skills. Aoi has incredibly sharp comedic timing for someone who spends a good amount of her workweek with her feet in the air, and this short, sexy romp will appeal to anyone with the ability to laugh (the zombie infection can also spread to sushi!). —Drew Lazor (RB, 7/16, 10pm)

Deliver Us From evil Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch) delivers a slick, amoral Straw Dogs retread set in a Danish seaside town. After wastrel lars (jens Andersen) flattens an elderly woman with his tractor-trailer, he shifts the blame to Bojan Navojec, a Bosnian refugee doing odd jobs for his older, more productive brother, johannes (lasse Rimmer). led by the dead woman’s husband, a retired colonel whose son was killed in the Serbian theater, the town’s population of angry drunks and bitter workingmen instantly jump at the chance to crucify the outsider, but johannes stands in their way, motivated as much by bourgeois disdain as any sense of moral rectitude. johannes’ house, with wife and children inside, is converted into a fortress assailed by bloodthirsty rednecks, an overdetermined setup the movie does little to complicate. like Sam Peckinpah, Bornedal clearly dislikes his ostensible hero, but there’s none of Peckinpah’s self-critical ambivalence. He doesn’t have the courage or honesty to work himself into the story, and all that

The brutal, brutalizing cinema of Gaspar Noé would seem to have deadended with Irreversible, a movie that centered around a rape conducted in excruciating real time. But Noé pushes the needles further into the red with Enter the Void, a postmortem hallucination whose pulsating cascade is likely to induce seizures even in the non-epileptic. Shot almost entirely from the P.O.V. of a callow American killed in a drug bust, the film floats through the neon miasma of Tokyo like a woozy ghost, seeking out the seedy

front for a highly specialized, partially mechanized team of attractive young girls who work as high-power hitwomen. Circular saw mouthpieces, throat-slashing blade implants, throwing star-dispensing anuses and (of course) acidic projectile breast milk pepper every Troma-esque scene, but the movie’s too long, and its premise is subversive for the sake of being so, like a high school kid who prominently pastes pentagrams on the inside of his locker. —D.L. (RB, 7/10, 10pm)

When he encounters a strange series of events, Tõnu struggles to grasp the point of leading a good life and with it goes his sanity. Practically every word out of his mouth, including a conversation he has with an agnostic priest, is purely existential. Mix in some acts of

The TempTATion oF sT. Tony With what little comprehensible dialogue there is in Vieko Õnpuu’s elusive psychological thriller, one line stands out: “A man’s life these days is not worth shit.” It summarizes the moral confusion of the main character, Tõnu, a factory manager close to a midlife crisis. He wants to know: Will a good life be rewarded in the afterlife?

cannibalism and you’ve got the overall idea. Shot in black and white against a backdrop of the Estonian and Swedish countrysides, St. Tony’s visuals and editing are what place The Temptation of St. Tony above other foreign thrillers. The same can’t be said for the subjectless subtitles. —Lauren Macaluso (RB, 7/13, 10pm)

milieux Noé loves so much. Ostensibly due to the largely unseen protagonist’s desire to safeguard his stripper sister, Noé wastes no excuse to undress Paz de la Huerta, whose body has been covered outside and in by the final reel.

Arguments over visionary psychedelia versus exploitation art-wank are sure to ensue, but it’s worth seeing just for the chance to take sides. —S.A. (RB, 7/15, 10pm)

roBogeishA Too concerned with hitting all its bugged-out bullet points to come off as anything more than a series of sick sight gags, japanese cult auteur Noboru Iguchi’s RoboGeisha is shocking by design, yet dull as a whole.

ultra-competitive sisters yoshie (Aya Kiguchi) and Kikue (Hitomi Hasebe) are recruited by the dreamy CEO of a steel conglomerate for what they believe will be cushy gigs as geishas, but soon learn that the company’s a

0 0 DogTooTh giorgos lanthimos’ sublimely unsettling parable begins with an outlandish idea and follows it through with devastating logic. Taking parental oversight to its furthest extreme, a middle-aged father and mother keep their three grown children captive in their own house, restraining them not with locks or chains but an elaborate mythology that paints the world beyond as a toxic death trap. rather than remaining innocent, if they ever were, the children exist in a state of pure amorality; their limbs hang awkwardly, as if there’s nothing holding them up. lanthimos’ open-ended approach leaves the film open to multiple, if equally inconclusive, interpretations, but its indefiniteness only adds to the unease. —S.A. (RB, 7/9, 10pm)

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shelflife Justin Bauer, under the covers

SMALL WONDERS

³ HIGH CONCEPT — AT least in the movie business — feels like a backhanded compliment.

It carries a taint of gimmickry, a slight suspicion that you’re about to be tricked. High concept means you’re in for a technical display, a virtuoso performance that fits neatly into a two-paragraph blurb.

Take David Nicholls’ One Day (Vintage, June 15), which follows Emma and Dexter from a night spent together after college graduation through 20 years of their lives.The action takes place on one day per year until our 22-year-olds hit their 40s. Chapters build to charged meetings as dogged Emma painstakingly assembles career, boyfriend and professional success while Dexter squanders his natural charm as a short-term C-list celebrity with a long-term case of arrested development.

If the story is predictable and the structure forces important moments offstage, Nicholls compensates by coloring in Dex and Em’s story with nuanced strokes. Nicholls’ talents as a writer echo Nick Hornby’s, both in the fluidity of his style and the flatly laddish trajectory of Dex’s story. What’s more, the steady momentum of his chapters amplifies the creep of aging as Dex and Em pile up their days.

Nicholls’ facility with a single idea is the polar opposite of the considerably less-disciplined Alasdair Gray. Considered something of a living legend for his debut, Lanark, and something of a crackpot for his painstaking approach to publishing, Gray frames Old Men In Love (Small Beer, June 1) as the found manuscript writings of John Tunnock (a Glaswegian schoolteacher and disappointed novelist), collected and edited by a distant relative, helped by “local writer” Alasdair Gray.

The papers — fragments of three historical novels, sutured together by Tunnock’s diaries — are engaging, scattered and uneven. But Gray festoons his pages with marginalia and portraits and illustrations, showing his allegiance doesn’t lie with Tunnock, but with his beautiful book.

Gray’s commitment to the object underlines the difference between his old-fashioned postmodern>>> continued on page 24

HEART ON HIS KEYS: “I always wanted to make an album of my own,” says jazz vet Dave Posmontier. “Just never got around to it.”

NEAL SANTOS

[ jazz ]

POSTERITY NOW Philly jazz pianist Dave Posmontier returns to the clubs with his first solo record.

By A.D. Amorosi

A

s of June 2010, there are two things that local legendary jazz keyboardist Dave Posmontier, 59, had never done: raised his voice or recorded an album under his own name.

With his quartet’s Posterity having just been released, scratch the latter off that list. The yelling bit? Not likely.

He’s played on plenty of Philly jazz classics: trumpeter John Swana’s The Feeling’s Mutual, a 1984 recording of the Posmontier Brothers Quintet (with his brother Rich) titled PBQ, and Here’s My Heart from the late adventurous vocalist Zan Gardner. “I always wanted to make an album of my own but… just never got around to it,” Posmontier says quietly.

Being an even-tempered, low-talking gent doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been passion, grit and humor in his work. Quite the opposite. For all the Brahms on Posterity, there’s heavy blues and gospel covers, too. There’s a soulful swing to his compositions, to say nothing of his rigorous acoustic piano style. The Temple U math major has been part of one of Philly’s coolest organ trios with Micky Roker and Bootsie Barnes since the early ’70s. By the late ’70s, he was playing with guitarist Steve Giordano’s Chosen Few — a vocal trio whose matching outfits Posmontier keeps stashed in his attic. “Green suit, white shoes, polka-dot shirt,” he

recalls. “We were too hip.” Along with being one-fourth of violinist John Blake’s Quartet, Posmontier is also the synth-playing “Dr. Funk” in the dippy Klingon Klezmer. “They’re a zany act that takes me out of my element.”

Longtime fans know Posmontier took himself out of his usual element throughout the 2000s. Since the turn of the century, he’s devoted time to family, teaching and private big-ticket events like weddings and bar mitzvahs. The closing of Zanzibar Blue and Ortlieb’s left Posmontier with fewer clubs to play. “I love Chris’ Jazz Café, but I’m not a kid so the 11-to-2 slot can be tough.” (He laughs when I remind him his own kid, pianist Alex, has played Chris’.) Besides, the cigarette smoke at jazz bars really got to him.

“The fact is I got jaded,” he says frankly. “The pickings were easier during the ’70s and ’80s. It’s a challenging proposition dealing with club owners. You can spend a lot of time and energy trying to book one night at one club for very little money.”

Then the private-party market dried up, too. The cigarette smoke cleared. And the pianist started staking out venues outside of Center City — LaRose in Germantown, Spence Café in West Chester. He became part of Philly’s intergenerational jazz scene and developed a hankering to record his body of tunes, some of which had been part of his self-penned catalog for 30 years.

“I’m so glad that I finally did it — record an album — that I’m

“I really dug in.

It made the songs more pianistic.”

>>> continued on page 24

the naked city | feature

[ you’re about to be tricked ] ³ vinyl

For an artsy, experimental project, On Fillmore — at the Art Alliance on Wednesday (July 14, arsnovaworkshop.org) — can get downright goofy. On last year’s delightful Extended Vacation (Dead Oceans), the instrumental duo — bassist Darin Gray and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche — stretched out beyond the subdued vibes/percussion/upright-bass interplay and near-ambient tone of their earlier works, interspersing a handful of spooky drones, a bewildering array of animal noises and, at one point, what sounds like a drunken marching band.

—K. Ross Hoffman

When it comes to lyrical vignettes of the 215, Birdie Busch is tops. Her debut had “South Philly”; 2007’s ab fab Penny Arcade had “Huff Singers (North Philly)”; and her new 7” on Be Frank Records, Everyone Will Take You In, is entirely Philly-themed. She covers The Soul Survivors and extols Devin Greenwood’s dearly departed Honey Jar Studios. Though not directed specifically at Mr. Vento, “Joey” speaks of changing neighborhoods filled with red, white and green flags, entreating the stubborn old-timers not to be “so macho.” Best line: “Don’t get so stressed about that 20-year-old hipster in your nonna’s house —John Vettese dress she bought at a thrift store.” Brilliant.

³ podcast Some of the best podcasts have that “crazy loner in a basement” feel, but nobody breathes anger and sweats neurosis like comedy veteran Marc Maron. WTF (wtfpod.com) is a biweekly brain spiral — a series of too-personal anecdotes and the occasional flash-flooding rant. And then he brings out the guests, usually other comedians who try to sneak in a few jokes as the whole thing dives into madness.

—Patrick Rapa

flickpick

Peter Burwasser on classical

³ photography Choosing subjects and then keeping them at arm’s length, Philly photographer Ruth Savitz is able to study how people and their environments relate. They wear parkas and rush across snowy Broad Street in a backlit blur. They perch on Swann Fountain lit by Parkway lampposts, quizzically checking the City Hall clock. They are tiny specks of workers in the eerie iridescent green of a Second Street construction site by night. The CP Photostream (citypaper. net/photostream) regular is currently showing “Dark and Light” at Bonté (130 S. 17th St.) through Aug. 12. It makes a good game: Find the people, they’re in there somewhere.

—John Vettese

[ movie review ]

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

She’s as lethal as Bond.

³ SELLING CLASSICAL MUSIC has long been

a marketing conundrum, but the answer might be pretty simple. Find young, charismatic artists to make the music. Exhibit A: Gustavo Dudamel, all of 30 years, filled Verizon Hall earlier this year with those eager to watch his orgiastic conducting of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Charles Dutoit, who happens to be a far more refined musician, has had difficulty getting butts in the seats of the same hall, even with an orchestra, ours, that is in an entirely different league than the brash Angelinos. Which is why the Philadelphia Orchestra board made the hard-nosed business decision in naming a music director to pass over venerable Dutoit in favor of the 35-year-old Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

But this is nothing new. We had an Italian stallion by the name of Riccardo Muti here in Philly for more than a decade. He sold buckets of tickets. He happened to be, and still is, a fine conductor, but more people remember his hairstyle than his Brahms. In the realm of soloists, there are first-class violinists like the flashy, ecstatic Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Nigel Kennedy, who used to perform with a mohawk and a sleeveless tux.

The latest compelling callow character is a British pianist named James Rhodes. He’s had two solo releases on the Signum label. The first presented him as a mysterious, waif-like figure with an emo personality. There were so many pictures of him wearing sunglasses that I thought he was blind. The playing, however, is very lovely; deeply affectionate and richly toned, if somewhat unformed. His second album is even better, with some shrouds lifted from Rhodes’ persona. On a bonus interview disc, he refers to a lack of formal training. He talks about having once been involuntarily institutionalized. He also speaks of music he so dearly loves with poetic intuition, such as his notion of the opening of the Beethoven Sonata No. 30 in E major (Op. 109) existing in a kind of eternal ether, which the pianist enters into, like hopping on a train that is already moving along at a gently animated pace.

He has, in short, a kind of youthful ardor that makes you want to listen. Classical music lives. (p_burwasser@citypaper.net)

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LOCKED AND LOADED: Noomi Rapace kicks ass and takes names as Stieg Larsson’s complicated heroine, Lisbeth Salander.

There were so many pictures of him in sunglasses that I thought he was blind.

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[ B ] LISBETH IS HAVING nightmares. She’s spent a year traveling to faraway places (Australia, the Caribbean) and still, she’s haunted. She makes the only decision you’d expect from a tech-gothy whiz kid with a photographic memory: She heads back to Sweden to sort out her demons — and kick their asses, too. As in the first film based on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) is agonizingly efficient, fixated and alone, which doesn’t make her as self-absorbed as the men who usually play this archetypal role. She does her best to avoid contact with Mikael (Michael Nyqvist), the investigative journalist with whom she teamed on the series’ previous mystery. Still, he’s keeping track of her; Lisbeth is framed for a few murders, one involving the same so-odious legal guardian, Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson), who is only the latest of Lisbeth’s layered traumas. You don’t need to know the specifics to appreciate Lisbeth now — she’s as potent a cipher as any franchise hero: as resourceful as Bourne, as lethal as Bond. What makes Lisbeth resonate is that she combines these conventionalities with complications male counterparts could never fully manage: She gets herself, she knows how she looks to others and she’s willing to suffer consequences because she knows she can. The consequences in The Girl Who Played With Fire are dire and (tediously) familial. She and Mikael are both trying to solve the murders related to a sex-trafficking ring, which means they’re working in parallel, tracking down Johns and corrupt government agents. Encounters with the film’s striking villain (Mikael Spreitz), a huge blond hulk who literally feels no pain, makes for some too-standard action scenes: a car chase down a sidewalk, a punch-out involving crane shots and frantic close-ups, and a showdown that leaves our girl so undone that her resurrection seems biblical. For all the abuse, she’s less frantic and damaged this time, and thus, she’s more fascinating. —Cindy Fuchs

GET YOUNG

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³ jazz/experimental

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[ kaleidoscope ]

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✚ Posterity Now

<<< continued from page 22

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“Green suit, white shoes, polka-dot shirt,” he recalls.

“We were too hip.”

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looking forward to doing the next one sooner and making it more electric piano-filled and funky,” laughs Posmontier.

Posterity’s pretty funky. Not so much in a James Brown fashion. Rather, after having witnessed the keyboardist in many settings — including the languid fluidity of his time with Gardner and the pastoral bop of PBQ — hearing him hunkered down on an acoustic piano gives the proceedings a raw-knuckled physicality reminiscent of the heft of his organ trio with Roker and Barnes.

“That’s the grit you’re hearing,” says Posmontier of playing a Yamaha grand piano throughout Posterity. “I really dug in. It made the songs more pianistic.”

The finale, in particular — the moody ballad “Peace of Change” — is particularly raw in a way that has nothing to do with his playing style. “Zan always asked me to play that song for her,” notes Posmontier. He backed the late, great vocalist Zan Gardner on record and in live settings. “She really loved that song. It needed to be there.”

That sentiment — needing to be there — is a

Fairmount Goes French Fairmount Bastille Day Festival

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Celebrate French-Style in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Neighborhood THURSDAY, JULY 8 3:00pm -7:00pm – Shop like a “Frenchie”, 22nd Street Farmers’ Market 2:00pm – Buttercream Cupcake Truck goes French 7:00pm – Fairmount Fling Bar Crawl FRIDAY, JULY 9 Fairmount Goes French Kronenbourg 1664 beer, French wine specials, specialty drinks and French Menu Items 8:00pm – Movie Screening, Friends of Eastern State Penitentiary Park SATURDAY, JULY 10 Fairmount Bastille Day Festival 2:00pm - 6:00pm 10:00am – Tours of Eastern State Penitentiary (Admission) 2:00pm – Fairmount Pet Shoppe Pet Parade 2:30pm – Career Wardrobe French Fashion Show 3:00pm – Tricycle Tour De France and Live Music by Musette 5:15pm – Costume Contest 5:30pm – Storming of the Bastille Re-enactment Saturday Night Revolutionary fun continues in Fairmount Twilight Tours of Eastern State Penitentiary (Admission) SUNDAY, JULY 11 French Champagne Brunch

www.EasternState.org • For more information call 215-236-3300

[ arts & entertainment ]

mantra for Posmontier and the mission statement for Posterity.

Though he’s been a lover of jazz piano legends Ahmad Jamal and Oscar Peterson throughout his career, it’s Herbie Hancock’s taste and diversity through all genres that turns Posmontier on most. “He makes every note count. I like to think I do that.

You don’t have to roll with excess. Just make every note have purpose. Make it need to be there.” (a_amorosi@citypaper.net) ✚ Dave Posmontier plays with Glenn

Fericone Thu., July 8, and Thu., July 22, 10 p.m., Spence Café, 29 E. Gay St., West Chester, 610-738-8844, spencecaferestaurant.com. Posmontier plays with Ken Ulansey Fri., July 23, 6 p.m., free, The Little Treehouse, 10 W. Gravers Lane, Chestnut Hill, 215-247-3637, treehouseplaycafe. com. Posmontier plays with Carlton King Fri., July 30, 6:30-9:30 p.m., $22, Chaddsford Winery, 632 Baltimore Pike, Chaddsford, 610-388-6221, chaddsford.com/root/events/concerts.htm.

✚ Small Wonders

<<< continued from page 22

Valtat is as self-conscious as Jones is subconscious. ism and Nicholls’ high concept. Gray’s maximalist inability to pass up a digression is worlds away from the constraint that Nicholls’ device imposes on him.

While the challenge of a high-concept conceit may draw attention away from plot or character, the restrictions it imposes can magnify a story’s details or a writer’s performance. Shane Jones’ Light Boxes (Penguin, May 25), a slight, dreamlike thing, sketches out balloonist Thaddeus Lowe’s war against a godlike, winter-enforcing old man named February. Jones uses an armload of found documents and involved typography to dress up his fable’s small stock of words and images: Whispers in small-point typefaces, lists and white space combine to give the chapbook novel a fairy-tale feel. They make Thaddeus’ world glow, but Jones’ eventual pedestrian explanation of February’s behavior falls short of the precious intricacy of the book’s design, piercing the lofty atmosphere he’s built.

By contrast, Jean-Christophe Valtat’s 03 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, June 22) is as self-conscious as Jones is subconscious.

The single-paragraph novella freezes an extended stream-ofconsciousness reverie, as an isolated suburban teenager stares at his beautiful semi-institutionalized neighbor waiting for her bus across the street.Valtat’s narrator, perfect in his self-dramatizing emotional precocity, sidetracks into lurid little fantasies and screeds on Morrissey lyrics. The writing is stunning, but its duration and breadth of reference sap its plausibility, making it clear that Valtat’s imagination is the real show.

While it would be easy enough to accuse Alain Mabanckou

of the same miscalculation, his Broken Glass (Soft Skull, May 18) uses its simple central device to build up its own indictment. Disgraced Congolese schoolteacher Broken Glass is a wine-soaked fixture of Brazzaville bar Credit Gone West; the bar’s owner has given his educated regular a notebook to commemorate the tales of his fellow barflies.

The stories he collects share similar elements — unfaithful wives and feckless husbands, ambitions crushed and soaked in alcohol — and stumble wildly through French and African writing and traditions, quoting Zola and aping Perec and staging a bawdy pissing contest that could come from Rabelais.

Mabanckou’s writing is dense, witty and utterly singular; he casts his narrative into long, period-free run-on sentences, broken up only by white space here and there, as if his ruined, erudite drunk has you buttonholed in a corner.When he hands Broken Glass the notebook, the bar’s owner sneers at the oraltradition cliché that holds “In Africa, when an old person dies, a library burns.”“I only trust what’s written down,” he says. Mabanckou’s book is remarkable in the way it marries the two, using a flowing gout of words to push the hot, untrustworthy, wine-soaked breath of Broken Glass along the honest blank page. (j_bauer@citypaper.net)

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[ theater ]

FLOURISH OR PERISH

Three Sisters

Temple Repertory Theater takes a risk while everyone else is on vacation. By Mark Cofta n an economic and cultural climate where starting a serious professional summer theater in Philadelphia is a huge gamble — we’re known for physically and mentally living “downa Shore” in July and August, and even the venerable Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival anchors its season with a crowd-pleasing musical — the face-value risk that Dan Kern takes in launching Temple Repertory Theater’s rotating productions of Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure seems huge.

But he has his reasons.

“It’s a two-part thing,” says Kern, the company’s artistic director and winner of a Barrymore for Best Direction of a Play for Lantern Theater Co.’s production of Skylight. “First, we have a very talented and committed faculty active in the local theater scene, and we share a sensibility about what an ensemble can be.”

The word “ensemble” implies a group of artists working together over time, “not living under the pressure of having to find their next job,” Kern explains, “who know each other, and are allowed to take risks, a fertile creative environment.” Both Kern and Temple Theaters’ artistic director, Douglas Wager, matured in regional theaters that stressed collaborative community.

Second, Temple’s unique Masters of Fine Arts acting program recruits mid-career professionals seeking an advanced degree. To speed their progress, the degree takes two years, including summers — which the theater department would normally take off.

“We melded this with the practical, of course,” Kern continues.

“We received a mandate from the university to get better, to ‘flourish or perish.’ A lot of M.F.A. programs have connections with a resident professional company,” so Temple’s gone and created its own. This troupe features Barrymore winner Genevieve Perrier (Skylight) and Broadway veterans Yvette Ganier (The Miracle Worker, King Hedley II) and Gregg Almquist (I’m Not Rappaport, Richard III).

So why start with the classics — plays many might consider too

heavy for summertime?

“Well, we hope patrons of larger theaters will come,” Kern says.

“We hope there’s a critical mass of people who will be interested.

This is a smart town, a sophisticated theater town.” Moreover, he says, more confidently, “with the talent we have here, it doesn’t make sense not to capitalize on our strengths,” which include Temple graduates Dirk Durossette (scenic design), Millie Hiibel (costumes), John Hoey (lighting) and David O’Connor (sound).

Kern and Wager are determined to give those audiences something special. TRT places play and audience together on the Tomlinson Theater’s vast stage, with only 150 seats. “Doing theater in L.A.,” says Kern — who worked for the American Conservatory Theater, Mark Taper Forum and South Coast Rep — “I saw that a great piece of writing in an intimate space has a

So why start with the too-heavy classics?

[ arts & entertainment ]

powerful effect.”

Three Sisters (which Kern directs) and Measure for Measure (which Wager directs, with Kern playing the Duke) are ideal for the emotionally genuine acting that Kern teaches. “A play like Three Sisters really flourishes when actors are available and open,” says Kern. “It’s full of disconnects and surprises, and jumps from joy, hilarity and tears of laughter to tears of sorrow.”

Themes relevant to modern Americans, he says, “blossom out of moment-to-moment life.” Shakespeare’s provocative Measure for Measure receives a modernist spin from Wager, former artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The season came together last fall, when Kern realized that the year’s class work in Shakespeare and Chekhov would be more meaningful with a real-world focus. Future seasons will depend on what suits the talent. “We’re not a Shakespeare festival,” Kern says. “We’ll reach in any direction.” (m_cofta@citypaper.net) ✚ Three Sisters, through Aug. 1; Measure for

Measure, through July 30; $15-$25, Temple University, 1301 W. Norris St., 800-838-3006, temple.edu/theater.

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³ indie rock ³ reggae/dancehall

✚ KATZENJAMMER

✚ BARRINGTON LEVY

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³ cabaret-pop

MATHAIS FOSSUM

JOEL WRIGHT

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[ arts & entertainment ]

[ a&e picks ]

✚

These Norwegian folk/pop/rock drama queens are skilled at wrapping their heavenly voices around a melody like ivy climbing a fence, but things really get freaky in the shade. Seems like every other track on their lavish debut Le Pop (Nettwerk) has them dueling with the devil or fighting in bars amid furiously pumping accordions and rallying trumpets. It never gets too dark, more like devious and unabashedly operatic. And catchy, very catchy. You’ll feel a Decemberists/Dresden Dolls vibe, but also Mildred Bailey, Moulin Rouge and Hair.

REAL ESTATE/KURT VILE

Two of last year’s locally sourced lo-fi-ish success stories are back in town for a victory lap. For New Jersey’s Real Estate, in particular, this couldn’t come at a better time: While their debut sounded just fine when it dropped in November, they’ve always been obvious exponents of indiedom’s recent “summery” meme (refreshingly, the least gimmicky of the lot). Even without lyrics about vacations and sprinklers, or track titles like “Pool Swimmers” and “Let’s Rock the Beach,” their languorous, laid-back tunefulness and endlessly crystalline guitar shimmer feel custom-built for lazing about in the late afternoon heat.

As for Philly’s own Vile, his loose-riffing Matador debut, Childish Prodigy (CP’s fifth favorite album of 2009), often got as wild and woolly as Real Estate was mild-mannered and delicate, though both records shared a certain rangy wistfulness. The new Square Shells EP finds him in a mellower, folkier vein, singing those same old summertime blues.

—Patrick Rapa Fri., July 9, 9:30 p.m., $10-$12, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849, johnnybrendas.com.

³ dance

³ DELOREAN “Stay Close”

—Shaun Brady Sat., July 10, 8 p.m., $5, with Adam Caine and Bonnie Lander, Highwire Gallery, 2040 Frankford Ave., museumfire.com/events.htm.

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ANTHONY DEAN

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³ experimental

SHREDfest is the name of Nick Millevoi’s ongoing series of schematic improv-based compositions for an ever-changing ensemble, but it could just as easily be used as an overview of the Philly guitarist’s prolific output. He also employs his contortionist fretwork in the prog-jazz-metal trio Many Arms, the alt-country-jazz-rock group Circles, the avant-funk quartet Racketshop and the latest incarnation of art-rock ensemble Make a Rising. Millevoi has been squirreled away of late working on a new set of solo compositions for 12-string guitar and will be taking the stage alone this weekend as part of a lineup hosted by Fire Museum Records, but don’t expect the result to be any less intense. Despite the folksy connotations of the 12-string, Millevoi is constitutionally unable not to force his axe into brutal, complex configurations, and he promises plenty of distortion, noise and, naturally, shredding.

Tue., July 13, 8 p.m., $21-$37, with Homegrown and Spokey Speaky, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.

✚ ONE TRACK MIND

Sun., July 11, 9 p.m., $12, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849, johnnybrendas.com.

NICK MILLEVOI

—K. Ross Hoffman

✚ KORESH ARTIST SHOWCASE

—K. Ross Hoffman

✚

An unstoppable force in Jamaican music over the past three decades — the biggest dancehall star of the ’80s, and a key inspiration behind the development of ragga and jungle in the ’90s — the velvet-voiced Barrington Levy has never managed to replicate his U.K. success (let alone his domination of his home island) stateside. Notwithstanding a recent track that featured Busta Rhymes, Lil Wayne and Barack Obama. But even here, hits like “Here I Come” and “Under Me Sensi” have become familiar musical and cultural touchstones, even among non-reggae listeners.

Starving artists and art lovers, take note: The bimonthly Koresh Artist Showcase provides an opportunity to watch Philadelphia’s homegrown talent soar — all without anyone’s bank breaking. In a true give-andtake project with the community, local choreographer Ronen Koresh and his company provide artists free rehearsal and venue space, marketing and tech support; in exchange, they’re asked to put on 10-minute performances — anything from dance to visual arts and theater. Think of it as a precursor to the Fringe: For a nominal fee, audiences can see the pulse of Philadelphia radiating through its local up-and-comers.

—Jen Rini Sat., July 10, 8 p.m.; Sun., July 11, 6 and 8 p.m.; $10, Koresh School of Dance, 2020 Chestnut St., 215-751-0959, koreshdance.org.

Delorean’s Subiza works best as a single, beautiful, lusciously dense whole.

There’s no one stand-alone cut that quite reaches the heights of euphoric abandonscaled by “Seasun,” a highlight of the band’s breakout Ayrton Senna EP. But “Stay Close” comes darn close.With one massive, constantly mutating two-chord Italo-house keyboard riff, a disorienting vocal collage of anonymous diva samples, Ekhi Lopetegi’s earnest indie-dude crooning, the occasional stray “whoo!,” and a submerged, pulsing rhythmic undercurrent held together by, of all things, a tambourine track, it’s a curious amalgam of elements that doesn’t initially scream “dance anthem.” But these boys from Barcelona — who’ll be hitting Making Time at Voyeur this Friday (igetrvng. com) — are masters of the subtle build, and by the track’s end, they’ve manage to work up an impressive lather, frothing over with warmth, melody and anticipation. Rinse; repeat.

—K. Ross Hoffman

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“ THE PERFECT SUMMER MOVIE ! ” Bill Zwecker, FOX-TV

Despicable Me

✚ NEW

PREDATORS A haiku: Alien heroes prove their mettle by hunting mighty Topher Grace. (See Molly Eichel’s review at citypaper.net/movies.) (Rave: UA Riverview)

WILD GRASS|B+

COLUMBIA PICTURES PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH RELATIVITY MEDIA A HAPPY MADISON PRODUCTION A FILM BY DENNIS DUGAN “GROWN UPS” SALMA HAYEK MARIA BELLO MAYA RUDOLPH MUSIC MUSIC SUPERVISION BY MICHAEL DILBECK BROOKS ARTHUR KEVIN GRADY BY RUPERT GREGSON-WILLIAMS EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS BARRY BERNARDI TIM HERLIHY ALLEN COVERT STEVE KOREN WRITTEN PRODUCED DIRECTED

BY ADAM SANDLER & FRED WOLF

BY ADAM SANDLER JACK GIARRAPUTO

BY DENNIS DUGAN CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES

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“After the cinema nothing surprises you. Everything is possible,” states Georges Palet (André Dussollier) upon stepping out of a movie theater and into the light of suddenly changed fortune, but it could as easily be director Alain Resnais’ storytelling manifesto. From his breakthrough explorations of memory half a century ago with Hiroshima Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad to his whimsical indulgences in latter years, Resnais has always felt free to completely reinvent his films with each edit, their creator’s larks pulling rank over internal logic. His latest romance (or not), an adaptation of Christian Gailly’s novel L’incident, fixates on a single instant‚ a pursesnatching, that sets the story in motion, but it’s hardly the only decisive or game-changing moment. Georges finds the wallet belonging to dentist Marguerite Muir (the director’s muse, Sabine Azéma) and instantly begins to rehearse in his mind a meeting and subsequent flowering relationship between the two. When she doesn’t respond as she did in his imagination, his thoughts and actions turn darker, revealing hints of a criminal past — real or invented. A devoted cinephile, it’s never entirely clear how much of what Georges reveals is true and how much is his own recasting of himself as a character from the screen — an ambiguity that spreads to everyone around him, whose attitudes and motives are subject to change diametrically

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DESPICABLE ME|A Universal, whose animation arm’s lagged laughably behind cartoon cool kids Pixar and DreamWorks forever (see tepid entries like Balto, Curious George and The Tale of Despereaux), has a monster in its pocket with Despicable Me, which nets that elusive in-between all but guaranteeing feature-length grins from tykes and parents alike. It’s a 3-D feature that’d work just as well projected flat onto a greasy pizza box — screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul didn’t invent the bad guy-as-good guy gambit, but they’ve certainly figured out how to tailor it to those too young to enjoy Payback. Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is a vaguely accented supervillain settled into the doldrums of suburbia — when he’s not plotting large-scale heists with the help of his LEGO-like “minions” and senile sidekick Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand), he’s freeze-raying soccer moms to cut the coffee line and flattening sensible sedans while parallel-parking his terrormobile. But Gru learns that organized evil, just like any other lucrative American industry, is susceptible to ageism — he’s denied a loan necessary to finance his theft of the moon because lenders prefer the younger, flashier Vector (a zany, unrecognizable Jason Segel). An elaborate revenge plan leads Gru to adopt three children (their ringleader voiced by Miranda Cosgrove) from a girl’s orphanage, and it’s not long before their broad abandonment issues begin mirroring the icy-hearted baddie’s own ragged relationship with his vile mother (Julie Andrews). Despicable has the rare distinction of being defined by its inclusive storyline and good, clean laughs instead of its all-star cast, all of whom seem more interested in shaping funny characters than merely building up their respective vocal brands. —Drew Lazor (UA Riverview)

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE|B See Cindy Fuchs’ review on p. 23. (Ritz Five)

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without warning. It all amounts to the octogenarian filmmaker playfully shrugging, “It’s only a movie,” reminding us to stop worrying about what really happened and to concentrate only on what might. The results may be inconsequential, but they’re also regularly delightful and at times startling. —Shaun Brady (Ritz at the Bourse)

✚ CONTINUING COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY|CJan Kounen’s double-barreled biopic Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky doesn’t start well. For one thing, there’s its book-report title, which seems to promise a rote rehash of its protagonists’ lives without shape or insight. The movie’s saving grace is its performances. Clad in razor-cut monochrome, Anna Mouglalis plays Coco Chanel as a living icon. There’s no depth to the characterization, but its contours are as sharp and engrossing as an Art Deco print. The other standout turn is from Elena Morozova as his long-suffering wife. Sallow and tubercular, she swallows hard when Chanel invites her husband to stay in her spare house. Coco & Igor offers inconsequential insight into its titular titans of modernism. —Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse)

CYRUS|C+ A move into the mainstream makes for strange bedfellows for directors the Duplass brothers, but despite the presence of name actors and a relatively inflated budget, Cyrus is of a piece with the mumblecore mavens’ two earlier films. John C. Reilly plays John, a divorced schlub whose ex-wife (Catherine Keener), soon to be remarried, drags him to a party

where he meets the charming Molly (Marisa Tomei). Their relationship quickly blossoms, despite a hint of secrecy on her part — which turns out to be her son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), with whom she shares a slightly too-close relationship. The stage is thus set for an escalating battle between lover and “child,” but aggression is alien to the Duplass worldview, so a few early bouts of passive-aggressive sparring eventually flatline until everyone just shrugs and decides to be nicer to one another. It’s an issue that by now seems inherent to the Duplasses’ method: With such a muted narrative drive, their films amble until they stall, at which point they wander to a limp finish. —S.B. (Ritz Five)

GROWN UPS|CWith all of its leads neutering their personal comedic styles for the family-friendly market, Grown Ups follows childhood buds reunited by the death of their basketball coach. Ringleader Lenny (Adam Sandler) — who you know is from New England by the college-themed shirts he constantly dons — is now a Hollywood agent with snotty kids who have a mineral water preference (Voss) and text the nanny with their requests. He sees this retreat as a chance to de-brat his brood, and as a way to reconnect with family man Eric (Kevin James), househusband Kurt (Chris Rock), swinging bachelor Marcus (David Spade) and constant punching bag Rob (Rob Schneider). Because there is little to no conflict built into the plot, the film progresses with everyone playing the parts we’ve all seen them in before. —Molly Eichel (Rave; UA Grant; UA Riverview; UA 69th St.)

I AM LOVE|ALuca Guadagnino’s sprawling family saga is a gloriously overwrought

beast that aptly lays claim to its characters’ Russo-Italian heritage. The movie begins in classical style, with a grand banquet at which the future of the family-run textile concern is laid out with a sense of occasion usually reserved for matters of state. But Guadagnino’s focus is not the filial succession of the family’s industrial empire but its immigrant matriarch, a transplanted Russian played by Tilda Swinton whose attempts to efface her own past crumble as the family rushes into the future. The movie’s pointed stylistic eccentricities — drifting zooms that gravitate toward incidental detail, a booming score composed of repurposed John Adams compositions — are so reminiscent of Arnaud Desplechin’s Kings & Queen and A Christmas Tale that the resemblance can be distracting.

But then Desplechin never cast Swinton, whose very presence acts as a ballast against Guadagnino’s fanciest flights. —S.A. (Ritz Five)

JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK|BRicki Stern and Anne Sundberg followed the self (deprecatingly)-professed comedy icon for a year, exposing the fragility of a performer’s ego and the challenges of growing old in show biz. But from its opening extreme close-up of the subject’s blemished, unmade-up face to her frankness about a career on the wane, the film is less brutally honest than it is a desperate assertion of relevance and a plea for work. —S.B. (Ritz at the Bourse) JONAH HEX|CThe disfigured Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin), a Civil War hero who goes rogue after refusing to follow the orders of his nihilist commander Turnbull (John Malkovich), subsists as a bounty hunter. (The catch: Hex has the power to confab with the dead after he touch-

INVITES YOU AND A GUEST TO AN ADVANCE SCREENING ON TUESDAY, JULY 13 AT A CENTER CITY PHILADELPHIA THEATER.

To enter for a chance to win screening tickets for two text DREAMS with your ZIP CODE to 43549 (Example: DREAMS 19103)

A FILM BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

No purchase necessary. Deadline for entries is Friday, July 9, 2010 at NOON ET. Theater is overbooked to ensure a full house. Arrive early. Tickets received through this promotion do not guarantee admission. Texting services provided by 43KIX/43549 and are free. Standard text message rates from your wireless provider may apply. Check your plan.

One entry per cell phone number. Late and/or duplicate entries will not be considered. Winners will be notified electronically. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis, except for members of the reviewing press. No one will be admitted without a ticket or after the screening begins. This film is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout. Anti-piracy security will be in place at this screening. By attending, you agree to comply with all security requirements. All federal, state, and local regulations apply. Warner Bros. Pictures, Philadelphia City Paper and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred, or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. We are not responsible for lost, delayed, or misdirected entries, phone failures, or tampering. Void where prohibited by law.

es them.) When Turnbull surfaces with a plan to build a “nation killer” weapon, the government puts Hex on the payroll to stop him. The movie’s innumerable over-performances could be chalked up to its status as a comicbook adaptation, but it’s more likely everyone saw the project to completion to have something to joke about at Malkovich’s Friar’s Roast a few years from now. —D.L. (Pearl; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

THE KILLER INSIDE ME|BMichael Winterbottom’s adaptation of Jim Thompson’s gleefully sociopathic novel has sparked complaint wherever it goes. Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is the outwardly genial sheriff of a small Texas town, but as the title forewarns, there’s a growing darkness behind his slow-spreading hick smile. It’s not clear — or rather, it’s not important — what sets off Lou’s rampage, but he starts spreading corpses in short order, deftly side-stepping his higherups’ attempts to catch him in the act.

The trouble arises not from Lou’s ends, but his means. The men he kills are dispatched with moderate efficiency, but the women — well, there it gets personal. What prompts cries of misogyny is not just Killer’s explicitness — although that certainly raises the stakes — but the suggestion that Lou’s lovers are somehow complicit, that they proclaim their love for him even as he ends their lives. And that’s where the movie’s failure to replicate the book’s complexities comes in.

Thompson’s book is a first-person study of pathological personality, a warped view from inside the funhouse, but Affleck’s eerily affectless performance doesn’t get inside Lou Ford’s head. —S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse) KNIGHT AND DAY|BTom Cruise once again puts that

[ movie shorts ]

megawatt smile to work as Roy Miller, an affable yet certainly oddball secret agent who, on a flight from Wichita to Boston, death-defyingly meets-cute June Havens (Cameron Diaz). Miller, as he later serenely explains to an apoplectic June, is being framed for stealing the zephyr — a battery that could power a small city — making it completely necessary to kill everyone on the flight. Because June is now associated with Miller, she’s no longer safe on her own, and follows him to picturesque locales around the world to protect the zephyr’s creator (Paul Dano) and clear his besmirched name. The characters are thin and their choices seem to come out of nowhere. But more importantly: Do we really care if a character has depth if Tom Cruise is the one supplying it?

—M.E. (UA Grant; UA Riverview; UA 69th St.)

RESTREPO|A Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger’s outstanding documentary was shot as the filmmakers were embedded with one company over 14 months in the Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan. Released as the war in Afghanistan stretches drags on, the film offers a series of moments, some blurring together and others jarringly singular. In between these verité scenes, the film includes interviews conducted after the deployment, wherein the soldiers look back and try to sort out boredom and chaos, frustration and unspeakable loss. —C.F. (Ritz at the Bourse)

TOY STORY 3|B+ Essentially extending the loss-of-

✚ REPERTORY FILM ANDREW’S VIDEO VAULT

childhood montage from its predecessor to feature length, Toy Story 3 finds Woody the cowboy (voiced

by Tom Hanks), galactic superhero Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the rest of the gang abandoned by their once-faithful Andy, who is counting down the few days left before he goes to college. The toys fear being left by the curb, so they dispatch themselves to the nearest day-care center.

Too many of Toy Story 3’s elements feel like slightly modified versions of the first two films. As always, the visual textures and the attention to detail are dazzling, lending the toys a degree of sentience without compromising the limitations of their plastic forms. —S.A. (Pearl; Rave; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview; UA 69th St.)

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE|C+

WINTER’S BONE|B+ When 17-year-old Ree’s (Jennifer Lawrence) dad is arrested and then goes missing, she’s in danger of losing their ramshackle house and 300

THE BALCONY 1003 Arch St., 215-922-6888, thetroc. com. Hot Tub Time Machine (2010, U.S., 99 min.): Four best friends party in a hot tub that brings them back in time. It is there that they find their mojo. Mon., July 12, 8 p.m., $3.

BISTROT LA MINETTE 623 S. Sixth St., 215-925-8000, bistrotlaminette.com. Priceless (2006, France 106 min.): Jean is a bartender mistaken for a millionaire by golddigger Irene (Audrey Tautou). Once he discovers her schemes, Jean beats her at her own game by dating older, rich women. Mon., July 12 and Thu., July 15, 8 p.m., free.

GERSHMAN Y 401 S. Broad St., 215-545-4400, gershmany.org. Funny Girl (1968, U.S., 151 min.): Barbra Streisand is Fannie Brice, the girl from the Lower East Side who dreams of being a Ziegfeld Girl and, as she puts it, no one will rain on her parade. Sat., July 10, 7 p.m., $10.

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART 118 S. 36th St., 215-898-7108, icaphila.org. Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (2007, Australia/U.S., 120 min.): Director Scott Hicks documents the life and music of composer Philip Glass. RSVP to rsvp@livearts-fringe.org. Sun., July 11, 2 p.m., free.

LIBERTY LANDS N. 3rd and W. Wildley sts., 215-6276562, nlna.org. Contact (1997, U.S., 150 min.): Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) advocates that humanity is “not alone,” and begins communicating with aliens. Tue., July 13, 9 p.m., free.

1905 Locust St., 215-685-6621.

Dodge City (1939, U.S., 104 min.): As the new sheriff in town, Wade Hatton (Errol Flynn) learns the news in Dodge is “gamblin’, drinkin’ and killin’.” Wed., July 14, 2 p.m., free.

PUFF The Piazza at Schmidts, 1050 N. Hancock St., 215-467-4603, atthepiazza.com. Sons of Perdition (2010, U.S., 85 min.): Follows a group of teenagers exiled from their polygamist societies in Arizona. Fri., July 9, 8 p.m., free.

ROCKIN’ REELS The Piazza at Schmidts, 1050 N. Hancock St., 215-467-4603, atthepiazza.com. Shine a Light (2008, U.S./U.K., 122 min.): Go ahead, do your best Jagger. Thu., July 15, 7 p.m., free.

RUBA HALL 414 Green St., 215-627-9831. This Nude World (1933, U.S., 55 min.): Sold as “positively for adults only,” this doc is an early 20th-century look at the world’s nudist colonies.

Screened with a bonus short titled Boy with a Knife. Fri., July 9, 10 p.m., $10.

WAGNER FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE OF PHILADELPHIA 1700 W. Montgomery Ave., 215763-6529, wagnerfreeinstitute.org.

Ferngully (1992, Australia/U.S., 76 min.): Batty (Robin Williams) and his friends must save their home from Hexxus, the evil polluting force seeking to destroy Ferngully. Reservations required for parties of 10 or more.

Tue., July 13, 2 p.m., free.

[ movie shorts ]

Hollywood has portrayed gays and lesbians throughout the last century. He says much of what we see at the movies is how we define the LGBTQ community. Wed., July 14, 7:15 p.m., $10.

More on:

WILLIAM WAY COMMUNITY CENTER 1315 Spruce St., 215-732-2220, waygay.org. Screened Out: Gay Images on Film Author and film historian Richard Barrios will screen film clips to analyze how

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THE SUMMER’S BEST,

MOST ORIGINAL AND CRAZILY INVENTIVE COMEDY

. .

YOU’LL LAUGH ‘TIL IT HURTS Peter Travers

Sundance Film Festival SXSW Film Festival BAMcinemaFEST Los Angeles Film Festival

SCHUYLKILL BANKS 25th & Walnut sts., schuylkillbanks. org. Romancing the Stone (1984, Mexico/U.S., 106 min.): Joan Wilder’s (Kathleen Turner) sister is kidnapped in Colombia. Thankfully, adventurer Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) arrives to protect her. Thu., July 8, 8:15 p.m., free.

SCRIBE VIDEO CENTER 4212 Chestnut St., 215-222-4201, scribe.org. Horse in the City: Lessons from the Bill Pickett Riding Company (2010, U.S., 27

John met the woman of his dreams.

Then he met her son...

min.): Follows Philadelphia’s own riding academy. Conversations About Ships (2010, U.S., 20 min.): A 97-year-old reminisces about his life as a merchant sailor. Fri., July 9, 7 p.m., $5.

FoxSearchlight.com

SOUTH STREET HEADHOUSE DISTRICT 400 S. Second St., 215-625-7988, southstreet.com. In a Dream (2008,

CLEARVIEW CINEMAS

Center City 215-925-7900

Bala Cynwyd 888-CLVW TIX

RITZ FIVE

BALA THEATRE

AMBLER THEATER COUNTY THEATER Ambler 215-345-7855

Doylestown 215-345-6789

HIWAY THEATRE Jenkintown 215-886-9800

RAVE MOTION PICTURES

Princeton 683-7595

Voorhees 856-783-2726

PRINCETON GARDEN RITZ CENTER 16 THEATRE

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LANDMARK THEATRES

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British director David Slade, responsible for edgy fare like Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night, relies on an athletic approach to framing action and a moody eye for setting to crank out the least sucky Twilight movie yet. Credit some of that to chronology: Unlike the 2008 original and last winter’s New Moon, the third installment in this five-film series actually has some meat to it. For starters, perma-conflicted Bella (Kristen Stewart) has never been this tormented about her hot/heavy love triangle with glowering male-model vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) and shirt-hating wolfboy Jacob (Taylor Lautner). What is a pouty, flannel-wearing girl in the Pacific Northwest TO DO? Get hunted down by a bloodlusty army of “newborn” vamps led by the vengeful Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard), that’s what.

Eclipse’s glassy-eyed young stars are still shoveling schlock, but at least we now know what it’s like when one vampire rips another vampire’s arms off (it makes a cool sound!). —D.L. (Pearl; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview; UA 69th St.)

The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St., 215573-3234, therotunda.org. The Body Beneath (1970, U.K., 82 min.): In an attempt to save his family’s bloodline, a vampire disguised as a minister turns his family into bloodsuckers. Door to Silence (1991, Italy, 87 min.): Melvin (John Savage) is haunted by a hearse and visions of a beautiful woman in Lucio Fulci’s final flick. Thu., July 8, 8 p.m., free.

PHILADELPHIA CITY INSTITUTE LIBRARY

U.S., 80 min.): Chronicles the life and work of beloved muralist Isaiah Zagar. Meet filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar — the subject’s son — at 7:30 p.m.

Wed., July 14, 8 p.m., free.

the agenda | food | classifieds

For movie full reviews and showtimes, go to citypaper.net/movies.

1199 N. Delaware Ave., penntreatypark.org. Where the Wild Things Are (2009, U.S./Germany, 101 min.): Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the classic children’s book by the same name.

Young Max creates an imaginary world where he is crowned king of a group of wild beasts. Tue., July 13, 7 p.m., free.

a&e

THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES | C+ Ritz Five

PENN TREATY PARK

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THE KARATE KID | BPearl; Rave; UA Main St.; UA Riverview; UA 69th St.; UA Grant

acres, which he put up for bond. Debra Granik’s movie — winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize — makes for a complicated viewing experience, taut and rambling, bleak and hopeful.

Even as she solves one mystery, Ree is left with a raft of unanswerable questions. —C.F (Ritz Five)

the naked city | feature

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the

LISTINGS@CITYPAPER.NET | JULY 8 - JULY 15

icepack

[ Your to-do list, no matter what you’re doing ]

By A.D. Amorosi

³ THIS WEEK, PEOPLE you’ve never met before

will sweat on you and ask the most banal question in chat-up history: “Is-it-hot-enough-for-you?”

They’ll run the words together with a slight smile crawling across their faces while barely looking you in the eye. Avoid any desire to slap them in the snout or wipe that weak grin from their puss. The only thing hotter than the air you’re breathing is jail. ³ Solutions for self-cooling: Hang at Nick Lonchar’s three-day science fair/Tesla b-day bash starting July 9 in-and-around the Indie Visitor Center and the Free Library (nikolateslaclub.com). Or follow velvet Thom Cardwell through the gay-ish QFest starting July 8. “Over 25 film fests, I’ve worn many hats, but having a film of your own (he co-wrote the locally filmed You Can’t Have It All with director Jay Arnold) and preparing for its world première is giving me out-of-body experiences,” says Cardwell. Thom finally gets what most filmmakers he’s walked through the fest-process feel: “elation and petrification.” ³That other flick-fest org, Philadelphia Film Society,just promoted Michael Lerman to artistic director and hired Tom Quinn (Magnolia Pictures) and Ryan Werner (IFC) as programmers of the Philadelphia Film Festival. ³ Emily Litella Was Here: Rumor has it that one of the most recent letters between L&I and Sonny D’Angelo (of Italian Market D’Angelo Bros. butcher fame) had a typo; that he was making “sauces” and not the “sausage” that he crafts (not cooks).

This after he had already explained the art of sausage stuffing to L&I (and been fined for not having food prep papers). With Spice Corner and several other Ninth Street bizzes, seems like L&I has been making more than its usual mistakes in the last several months. ³ Now that chipper hardcore outfit Scareho broke the cherry on the Triangle Tavern and turned the red gravy Sout’ Philly eaterie from lounge legend Dusty Gallo performance space to punk dive on July 4, is more rawk on its way there? Same for the Station Bar & Grill on McKean Street? Cock-rocking Great Vibration have a gig there in July. Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar has rock.

South Philly Bar & Grill has karaoke so noisy it’s Merzbow-ian. Guess everybody’s bored with waiting for Connie’s Ric Rac to get a liquor license.

On the jazz tip, there’re the meatheads at Black Angus on South Street. They’ve been hitting it with live hard bop and true jazz (veal) chops of late. ³ Speaking of Philly jazzbos, Jamaaladeen Tacuma — onetime bassist for Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time — has finished For the Love of Ornette, an album with Coleman sax-ing up one track, a cover of a tune Ornette wrote for JT (“Tacuma Song”) and 19-years-young Philly drummer Justin Faulkner.

Stay tuned for label and release news. (a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

JUMP AROUND: Second City reaches its golden anniversary and sends (from left) Rob Belushi, Brooke Bagnall, Tim Ryder, Abby McEnany and Rachel Miller to party.

MICHAEL BROSILOW

[ funny ha-ha ]

SECOND SIGHT Legendary comedy troupe Second City turns 50, and hits the road with its best material to celebrate. By Matthew Cahn THE SECOND CITY 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR | July 13-25,

$20-$41, Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St., 215-985-0420, philadelphiatheatrecompany.org

T

here’s nothing funny about history. Unless it’s the history of Second City. For its 50th anniversary, the legendary Chicago comedy troupe is diving deep into the archives to keep the audience laughing — and with archives like these, it doesn’t look like they’ll have any trouble.

Consider Second City the Holy Roman Empire of comedy. The enterprise opened its doors in the Windy City in 1959, and has been breeding comedic geniuses ever since — notable alumni include Peter Boyle, Gilda Radner, all of the Ghostbusters, Stephen Colbert and homegirl Tina Fey. All who attend the troupe’s two-week run at Suzanne Roberts Theatre will certainly leave with a greater understanding of Second City, but the show is more like a greatesthits album than dusty old history lesson. Expect a miscellany of the company’s most hilarious stuff (sketches, songs, improvisations) written for Second City’s stage, by Second City’s best and brightest.

Because some of the material was written before the turn of the century, each skit has been updated for freshness. To keep the political and social satire relevant, some subtle adjustments have been made to the older scenes and skits — because that AOL 6.0 joke just isn’t as funny as it once was. (A sketch from 1959 called “Museum Piece,” about a trendy culture snob, for example, has been updated to include the word “hipster.” ) There will also be a few tweaks to give the show a dash of local color. The introductions for the skits and the transitions between them have been tailored specifically for the Philadelphia crowd.

The cast of the show will have a Philly bent, as well. Three Second City comedians — Edgar Blackmon, Rachel Miller and Katie Rich — are familiar faces in the 215; each had a role in last summer’s Second City/Philadelphia Theatre Co. co-production City of Nutterly Love. Accompanying them on stage are a few other Second City students, including Rob Belushi, a man with a dominant funny gene (he’s the son of Jim, nephew of John).

The local actors who had roles in Nutterly Love will also take part in the anniversary performances. On Friday night performances, they will lead a third act that is completely improvised. The rest of the show is scripted. Certain scenes will call for audience suggestions, taking something old and making it new. Kind of like the face of yet another esteemed Second City alum: Joan Rivers. (matthew.cahn@citypaper.net)

The Holy Roman Empire of comedy.

toured comedian has appeared on Apollo Comedy Hour and Comic View. Fri, July 9, 8:30 & 10:45pm, $15; Sat, July 10, 8, 10 & 11:55pm, $15, Laff House, 221 South St., 215440-4242.

Q BEN BAILEY The “Cash Cab”

comedian drives his taxi into Philly.

Thu, July 8, 8pm, $20-$25; Fri, July 9, 8 & 10:30pm, $25-$30, Helium Comedy Club, 2031 Sansom St., 215-496-9001.

Q COMEDYSPORTZ WORLD TOURNAMENT ComedySportz

Q BRIDGETTE MAYER GALLERY,

709 Walnut St., 215-413-8893.

MARK BROSSEAU: WONDROUS SPACES, Features Brosseau’s latest work, reflecting on nature and the relationships that exist within the environment. Runs through July 31.

Fri, July 9, 6pm, *.

Q CERULEAN ARTS, 1355 Ridge Ave., 267-514-8647. BEYOND VISION, Featuring work by members of the Coalition Ingenu Self-taught Artist’s Collective, a nonprofit who promote creativity among people with histories of homelessness and/ or mental illnesses. Runs through July 30. Sun, July 11, 1pm, *.

Q CRANE ARTS BUILDING, 1400 N. American St., 215-235-3405.

STRATUM, Features paper works

by Nancy Agati. Focuses on the Earth’s natural organizational systems. Runs through July 31.

Second Thursday reception Thu, July 8, 6pm, *.

teams from around the world come together for the first annual ComedySportz World Tournament.

Family-friendly hilariousity may ensue. $100 for a pass to all 6 shows.

Thu-Fri, July 15-16, 7 & 9:30pm, $15-$18; Sat, July 17, 7 & 9:30pm, $18-$21, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q FLEISHER/OLLMAN GALLERY, 1616 Walnut St., 215-545-7562.

JOHN J. O’CONNOR AND KATE ABERCROMBIE, Features the artists’ separate works, both of which are united through their experimentation with mixed mediums. Runs through Aug. 20.

Q KEVIN BRENNAN The former

LEGE OF ART & DESIGN, 20th St. & Ben Franklin Parkway, 215965-4027. PROJECT 35, Features the selections of 35 international curators, having each selected one artist whose video art you need to experience. Runs through July 31.

SNL star plays a double header. He has appeared on “Late Show with David Letterman,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” and HBO’s “One Night Stand.” Sat, July 10, 8:30 & 10pm, $25-$30, Helium Comedy Club, 2031 Sansom St., 215-4969001.

Q SEBASTIAN MANISCALCO He

had his own Comedy Central sponsored tour entitled “Sebastian Live!”

And yes, he prefers to go by his first name only. Wed, July 14, 8pm, $10$15, Helium Comedy Club, 2031 Sansom St., 215-496-9001. prov comedy from the Philly mainstays, with plenty of opportunity for audience participation. Every Fri, 8pm, $10-$15, The Actors Center, 257 N. 3rd St., 215-253-4276.

Q GALLERIES AT MOORE COL-

Q GALLERY 339, 339 S. 21st St.,

215-731-1530. IN REVIEW, Features photography from 10 different artists and is intended to preserve the depth and variety in unjuried contemporary photography. Runs through Sept. 4.

Q INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, 118 S. 36th St.,

215-898-7108. SUMMER STUDIO WITH ANTHONY CAMPUZANO, Features special guesting providing art instruction and group discussion. Runs through July 31.

Q LEONARD PEARLSTEIN GALLERY, 3215 Market St., 215-895-

✚ GALLERIES Galleries are usually open Tuesdays through Saturdays; please call the gallery for exact days and hours. Receptions are denoted by a *.

Q 2424 STUDIOS, 2424 E. York St.,

215-423-1800. FREETHINKERS FANCY FISHTOWN, Features the debut of Art Machine Productions.

Showcases tattoo and artwork of local artists. Runs through July 10.

Q AXD GALLERY, 265 S. 10th St.,

215-627-6250. QUEERART?, Features work from LGBTQ-identified artists in conjunction with QFest 2010. Runs through Aug. 7. Fri, July 9, 5pm, *.

Q BAHDEEBAHDU, 1522 N. Ameri-

Q LOCKS GALLERY, 600

Washington Square S., 215-6291000. WHITEOUT, Features a multi-channel video installation experimenting with lighting and space. Runs through July 30. Artist Reception Fri, July 9, 5:30pm, *.

Q MOORE COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN, 20th St. & Ben Franklin

Parkway, 215-965-4000. COLLABORATIVE WORKS WITH CHILDREN 1969-1999, Features artist Wendy Ewald’s work getting childish when she lets her subjects help out as her assistant art directors. The

33

can St., 215-627-5002. THE IRONIC & THE SUBLIME, Features the expressive, mixed-media creations of Jim Bloom alongside the meticulous

2548. NI UNA MAS, NOT ONE MORE: THE JUAREZ MURDERS, Features more than 70 works of art by 20 artists, including Yoko Ono, Kiki Smith and Nancy Spero, to raise awareness about gender violence and crimes against women in the Mexican border town of Juarez.

Runs through July 16.

P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R | J U L Y 8 - J U L Y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T |

Q THE N CROWD Short-form im-

food | classifieds

Q BARBARA CARLYLE This well-

and obsessive drawings of Justin Duerr. Runs through July 31. Opening reception Thu, July 8, 6-9pm *

the agenda

✚ COMEDY

[ the agenda ]

the naked city | feature | a&e

IF YOU WANT TO BE LISTED:

Submit information by mail (City Paper Listings, 123 Chestnut St., Third Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106), e-mail (listings@citypaper. net) or fax (215-599-0634) to Molly Eichel. Include details of the event, dates, times, address of venue, telephone number and admission price, if any. Listings must be received at least 10 days in advance of publication. Incomplete submissions will not be considered, and listings information will not be accepted over the phone.

a&e | feature | the naked city the agenda classifieds | food

exhibit is composed of six projects conducted in different locations during different years. Runs through Oct. 16.

Q PROXIMITY GALLERY, 2434 E.

Dauphin St., 267-825-2949. SELF PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE I DON’T KNOW, Features toothpick-crafted portraits of the artist’s acquaintances. Runs through July 15.

Q SQUARE PEG ARTERY, 108 S. 20th St., 215-360-5548. SARA HORNE, Features mixed media works by Sarah Horne inspired by the Deep Seas. Runs through July 31.

Q THE SLINGLUFF GALLERY,

11 W. Girard Ave., 215-307-1550.

FUNERAL PORTRAITS, Features artwork inspired by Mike Egan’s time spent working in a funeral home, reflecting on life, death and religion. Runs through July 25. Sat, July 10, 6pm, *.

✚ LGBTQ Q ANDREW SUVALSKY Swoon

and swing to the jazzy delights of Andrew Suvalsky at Harlan’s Cabaret. Sat, July 10, 8:15pm, $25, Nevermore, 6426 Lower York Rd., New Hope, 215-862-5225.

Q BARBRA KARAOKE Belt out the

tunes from Color Me Barbra or My Name is Barbra or even “The Way We Were” C’mon, you know that you know the words. Wed, July 14, 9:30pm, $5, Voyeur Club, 1221 St. James St., 215-735-5772.

Q BULGE Leave your clothes at the

door at this weekly underwear-only party. Minimal dress code will be enforced. Every Wed, 9pm-2am, $5, The Bike Stop, 206 S. Quince St., 215-627-1662.

Q GAY COMMUNITY NIGHT AT CAMDEN RIVERSHARKS Support

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J U L Y 8 - J U L Y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T

the gays in your community with a fun night of baseball with the Riversharks. Tue, July 13, 7:05pm, $11, Campbell’s Field, 401 N. Delaware

Ave., Camden, NJ, 856-963-2600.

[ the agenda ]

Q HOLLA DJ Eye-V spins at this

energetic monthly club night, where rink specials flow freely all night long. Every Third Thu, 9pm-2am, Stir Lounge, 1705 Chancellor St., 215-732-2700.

shoppingspree

Q HOMOROBICS Dig out those rainbow-colored toe socks and that glittery midriff top for this class, where you’ll dance to divas’ hits and firm your tush at the same time. Fun attire is strongly encouraged. Every Sun, 7-8:15pm, $10, Crossfit Gym, 201 S. Camac St., 856-220-0699.

³ RAINBOW ALTERNATIVE SIDEWALK EXPOSÉ

Q MEN OF COLOUR UNITED This

weekly discussion group offers support, education and prevention programs to gay and bisexual men of color. Every Wed, 6-8pm, FREE, Colours Inc., 1201 Chesnut St., 215-496-0330.

Q OFFICIAL AFTER-SCREENING PARTY FOR BEARCITY Leave Mama and Papa bear at home and party it up with food, music and $5 drinks. Fri, July 9, 8:30pm, Tabu Sports Bar and Lounge, 200 S. 12th St., 215-964-9675.

Q PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM BAND PRACTICE The Philadelphia Freedom Band is a concert band for amateur musicians of every sexual persuasion: gay, lesbian, bi, transgender and straight are all welcome.

No auditions necessary. Every Mon, 7-9pm, FREE, Arch Street United Methodist Church, 55 N. Broad St., 215-568-6250.

Q PORNO BINGO Have some fun with an X-rated spin on this classic kid’s game Every Sun, 10pm, FREE, 12th Air Command, 254 S. 12th St., 215-545-8088.

Q POSITIVE BROTHERS If you’re a man of color living with HIV/AIDS, this support and empowerment group is geared toward you.

Every Mon, 6-8pm, FREE, Colours Organization, 112 N. Broad St., 215-496-0330.

Q QSPACE These weekly chat pro-

By Julia West

It’s not that Nicole Krecicki hates rainbows.

She just doesn’t see them as the sole way to promote gay pride. In 2008, the Rainbow Alternative founder experimented with stencils and spray paint and — viola!

— fresh LGBTQ images were born. Using a street-tagging aesthetic, Krecicki creates tees, bags, ties, buttons and bottle openers that proudly proclaim “Don’t Block the Box” and “Gay ≠ Punchline,” plus images of Ellen DeGeneres, or girls kissing — ooh-la-la. Nothing against the rainbow connection, Krecicki is just providing other options. “The hope is that people will be more inclined to wear [the T-shirts] on a regular basis, and to everyday places, not just at a gay-pride parade,” she says. “[It’s] to make people think and make it clear that yeah, we really are everywhere.”

Fri., July 16, 4-7 p.m., free, Square Peg Artery and Salvage, 108 S. 20th St., 215-360-5548, squarepegartery.com. ³ MARKET AT THE PIAZZA GRAND OPENING This weekend marks the grand opening of the Piazza’s weekly market, set to run year-round. How is this different from their flea market? Because this is an ongoing event, it provides a weekly space where local businesses can set up a shop, allowing online-only stores to entice passers-by without high rent constraints. More than 200 vendors will be hawking home goods, recycled items, crafts, cupcakes and antiques. And, of course, there will be fashion finds. Check out hair accessories from Lady Saint Couture, Philly Phaithful’s sports apparel and ultra-swanky handbags from Elizabeth Bayu.

There will be plenty to choose from; the question is, will you make the right choice when it comes to vintage tortoise shell shades vs. Brazilian leather flats? Sat.-Sun., July 10-11, noon-7 p.m., free, Piazza at Schmidts, 1101 N. Second St., atthepiazza.com.

Have an upcoming shopping event? Give it here. E-mail listings@citypaper.net.

W

NO

EN

OP

EVERY THURSDAY

“The Improv Session” Local Musicians, here’s your chance to jump on stage and join our house band, The LXG, in a Jazz, Blues and Soul Jam session. Bring your instrument of choice, bring your skills and bring a friend. Tonight you’re the star!

FRIDAY, JULY 9TH

Let the feeding frenzy begin.

Food news, recipes, menu exclusives

citypaper.net/ mealticket

The Andy Martinek Trio

SATURDAY, JULY 10TH Jazz Vocalist Lauren Lark

SUNDAY JULY 11TH

In the Kitchen: Special Guest Celeb Chef Michael Atkins (Las Vegas, Arizona, Philadelphia, Delaware) The LXG (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) w/ spec. guests feat. Jonathan Michel, Adam Faulk, Khary Shaheed, Rick Tate & Charles Washington

EVERY WEDNESDAY

The Vocalist Jam Session hosted by Zenia – Tonight you’re the star!

Flex your vocal skills! Kinda like Karaoke except ya gotta know the words as you get the chance to jump on stage and sing LIVE with a Jazz/Blues/Soul Band. You pick the song and our band will back you.

5070 Parkside Ave

(on Parkside btwn 50th and 51st down the street from the Mann Center)

(215) 879-1011, www.lecochonnoir.com Wed-Fri open for Lunch and Dinner, Sat-Sun open for Dinner

2301 FAIRMOUNT AVE

PHILADELPHIA

215.978.4545

LONDONGRILL.COM

WORLD CUP FINALE! $3 Carlsberg Drafts and $6 S. African wine for all the games, Gourmet Hot Dogs and discount bar food!

Saturday July 10th Third Place Match $3 Kronenbourg Drafts- watch the game and join us for our Bastille Day Party Sunday July 11th- FINAL with TONS of give aways!

a&e | feature | the naked city

[ the agenda ]

✚ Agenda Picks <<< continued from page 37

[ nothing will stop it! ]

the agenda

³ BLOBFEST

THIS SATURDAY!

classifieds | food

THIS FRIDAY!

JULY 9

JULY 10

JULY 22

Q CRAZYFISH, 8pm, $10, Kung

In the ’80s, Stella “the Maneater from Manayunk” hosted Saturday Night Dead, a late-night program that honored B-rated horror films like Bluebeard and Sugar Hill. This weekend, Stella will pay homage to another horror flick — The Blob.The 1958 film not only gave young Steve McQueen his start but put a small Pennsylvania town on the map. Joined by her butler, Hives, and the Blob itself, Stella will kick off the first event of Phoenixville’s Blobfest with its yearly “Running Out” scene re-enactment.

The weekend fest is Phoenixville’s way of thanking The Blob for terrorizing its residents (most of the movie was filmed on their streets). To honor the role the town played in its production, Blob fanatics run frantically out of the same theater featured in the film — the Colonial — as if the purplish, gooey villain were after them. Other weekend festivities include several screenings of The Blob; an amateur short film contest; a Blob trivia contest; a Q&A with director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.’s wife, Jean; performances by the monster musical kiddie show Ghoul A-Go-Go; and a Fire Extinguisher Parade. After all, it was the weapon that finally defeated the small town’s worst nightmare.

Fri.-Sun., July 9-11, $5-$10 per event, The Colonial Theatre, 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville, 610-917-1228, thecolonialtheatre.org.

—Lauren Macaluso [ book ’em ]

JULY 24

JULY 28

Q EL P with TMQ, Chin Chin, Nick

Hook, Despot & Blockhead, 9pm, $17, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

Q MACHINE GUN JOE with Uncle

Lucious & Locksmiths, 8pm, $8, Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 215-238-5888.

Q MAMMOTH GRINDER with

Magrudergrind, Coke Bust, Lewd Acts & Deathbeds, 6pm, $10, Barbary, 951 Frankford Ave., 215423-8342.

Q SONIA LEIGH, 8:30pm, $13-$15,

World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q STREETCORNER PROPHETS,

8pm, $8, M Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., 215-739-5577.

Q THE POWDER KEGS with Bad

Doctors, Roadside Graves, & Strawberry Hands, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

Q VIC RUGGIERO with Chris Mur-

ray, The Forthrights & Curtis Irie, 7pm, $6, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.

THURSDAY 7/15

³ CHESTNUT HILL BOOK FESTIVAL

JULY 23

Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215291-4919.

Sci-fi, crime novels, romances — meander through an alphabet jungle at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival and engage in panel discussions, readings and workshops. Bookworms and Sparksnoters alike can participate in any of the 25 free events, spanning from the topics of science fiction to wellness and chess brigades. Bibliophiles, rejoice! Fri.-Sun., July 9-11, free, Chestnut Hill Visitor’s Center, 8426 Germantown Ave., 215-247-6696, chestnuthillpa.com.

—Jen Rini

Q A LEO SOUND WAVE with

Starving The Tsunami, Gelatine & Galaxies, 9pm, $8, Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 215-238-5888.

Q ADAM MONACO BAND with

Shortwave Society & Bellflur, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

Q CAMERON MCGILL & WHAT ARMY with Peasant, 7:30pm, $8,

Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919.

Q JESSE RUBEN with Zach Com-

tois, 8pm, $13-$15, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

40 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |

J U L Y 8 - J U L Y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T

Q KIDZ IN THE HALL with Q JILL SOBULE & JULIA SWEENY

Q JAGUAR WRIGHT, 9pm, $15-$18,

with Justin Trawick, 7:30pm, $21.50-$33, Sellersville Theater 1894, 24 W. Temple Ave., Sellersville, 215-257-5808.

Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

Dephonic, Stalley, Writtenhouse & Akilles, 8pm, $20, TLA, 334 South St., 215-922-1011.

Q LUX PERPETUA with Creatures

Q MIRADOR with Dawn Chasers,

of Prey, The Peter Penguid Society & Kitten Disaster, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

Q SOILWORK with Death Angel,

Q KATE TUCKER with Adrien Reju

JULY 29

JULY 31

AUGUST 7

DARK FALL Movie Premiere 8.28 NO LAUGHING MATTER Feat. Bob Levy, Nick DiPaolo, GET THE LED OUT Jim Florentine, Don Jamieson, UMPHREY’S MCGEE and Otto & George COLBIE CAILLAT 9.2 THE SPECIALS QUEENSRYCHE CABARET 9.3 AUGUSTANA 8.20 TEARS FOR FEARS 9.11 BLONDIE 8.21 TOMMY JAMES 9.17 BILLY IDOL & The Shondells 8.27 IGGY AND THE STOOGES Showboat Casino For Complete Concert Listings Log On To 7.16 8.6 8.8 8.14 8.19

801 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, NJ 609.236.BLUE

HOBATSHOWBOAT.COM

800.745.3000

Show and buffet packages available!

Stay the night in VIP-style in one of our chic and exclusive House Of Blues Studio Suites.

HOB Suite packages available on Ticketmaster.com.

Management reserves the right to change or cancel this event at any time without notice. Must be 21 or older to gamble, enter and remain in a New Jersey casino or participate in any Showboat promotion. Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. ©2010, Harrah’s License Company, LLC.

& Charlotte Littlehales, 8pm, $8, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-6719298.

Q KURT VILE with Real Estate,

9pm, $12, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

Q LAURIE ANDERSON’S ANOTHER DAY IN AMERICA, 8pm,

$37.50-$50.50, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q NOBODY BEATS THE DRUM

with C-Mon & Kypski, 8pm, $10, Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 215-238-5888.

Q PAPER LANTERNS with Every-

one Everywhere, Skinny Legs & The Mechanicals, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

MONDAY 7/12 Q LAURIE ANDERSON’S ANOTHER DAY IN AMERICA, 8pm,

$37.50-$50.50, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q BLIND MANS FATE with Her

Virgin Womb & Dark Waters End, 8pm, $5, M Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., 215-739-5577.

Q THE COKE DARES with Jukebox

Zeros & Man Like Machine, 8pm, $5, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919.

TUESDAY 7/13 Q CAGE with Hate Your Guts &

Voss, 8pm, $13, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., 215563-3980.

Q HENCHMEN with The Arkhams

& Full Blown Cherry, 8pm, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215291-4919.

Q SPENCER DAY, 7pm, $18-$23,

9pm, $7, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.

Augury, Mutiny Within & Shashbuckle, 7pm, $18.50-$50, Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-5483.

Q THE GREAT EXPLAINER with

Timeshares, Frost Watson & Hold Tight, 6pm, $6, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.

Q THE LOST PATROL with The

Sky Drops & Captive Kin, 9pm, $8, M Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., 215739-5577.

Q WE ARE SCIENTISTS with

Lightspeed Champion & Rewards, 9pm, $15, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q WOODS OF YPRES with Dirt

Worshipper, 9pm, $10, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

WEDNESDAY 7/14 Q BLUEBOND MUSIC SCHOOL

More on:

citypaper.net

ADULT CONCERT, 8:30pm, $8, Tro-

✚ MORE LISTINGS,

cadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-5483.

AND THEY SCROLL!

Open everyday 5p-2a Kitchen Open All Night Happy Hour Everyday 5p-7p

Friday, July 9 The Spinning Leaves 6pm Fellswoop 10pm Saturday, July 10 Traditional Irish Music Session 4pm Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cannon with Torpedo Rodeo 10pm Monday Nights Best Open Mic in Town 9:30pm Tuesdays & Thursdays Quizo: Pub Quiz 9:00pm

No Cover Downstairs!

THURSDAY

Wired 96.5 on the Main Floor House Music on The Roof Thursday Birthday - bottle of champagne and cake on the house!

FRIDAY

Hip Hop on the Main Floor House Music on The Roof

SATURDAY

House Music on the Main Floor Hip Hop on The Roof

SUNDAY

House Music on the Main Floor Q102 on The Roof

MONDAY

Latin Night/Free Lessons On the Main Floor Mixed Music on The Roof

TUESDAY

Hip Hop on the Main Floor w/Strength Dance Competition/ Pole Dancing Oldies Music on The Roof

WEDNESDAY

FREE, 21+ www.Fergies.com

Continuation of Center City Sips 5p-7p Hip Hop on the Roof & Main Floor

1214 Sansom St. 215-928-8118

116 S.18 th Street 215-568-1020

www.myspace.com/fergies booking@fergies.com

www.vangoloungeandskybar.com

a&e | feature | the naked city

[ the agenda ]

✚ Agenda Picks <<< continued from page 37

[ nothing will stop it! ]

the agenda

³ BLOBFEST

THIS SATURDAY!

classifieds | food

THIS FRIDAY!

JULY 9

JULY 10

JULY 22

Q CRAZYFISH, 8pm, $10, Kung

In the ’80s, Stella “the Maneater from Manayunk” hosted Saturday Night Dead, a late-night program that honored B-rated horror films like Bluebeard and Sugar Hill. This weekend, Stella will pay homage to another horror flick — The Blob.The 1958 film not only gave young Steve McQueen his start but put a small Pennsylvania town on the map. Joined by her butler, Hives, and the Blob itself, Stella will kick off the first event of Phoenixville’s Blobfest with its yearly “Running Out” scene re-enactment.

The weekend fest is Phoenixville’s way of thanking The Blob for terrorizing its residents (most of the movie was filmed on their streets). To honor the role the town played in its production, Blob fanatics run frantically out of the same theater featured in the film — the Colonial — as if the purplish, gooey villain were after them. Other weekend festivities include several screenings of The Blob; an amateur short film contest; a Blob trivia contest; a Q&A with director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.’s wife, Jean; performances by the monster musical kiddie show Ghoul A-Go-Go; and a Fire Extinguisher Parade. After all, it was the weapon that finally defeated the small town’s worst nightmare.

Fri.-Sun., July 9-11, $5-$10 per event, The Colonial Theatre, 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville, 610-917-1228, thecolonialtheatre.org.

—Lauren Macaluso [ book ’em ]

JULY 24

JULY 28

Q EL P with TMQ, Chin Chin, Nick

Hook, Despot & Blockhead, 9pm, $17, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

Q MACHINE GUN JOE with Uncle

Lucious & Locksmiths, 8pm, $8, Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 215-238-5888.

Q MAMMOTH GRINDER with

Magrudergrind, Coke Bust, Lewd Acts & Deathbeds, 6pm, $10, Barbary, 951 Frankford Ave., 215423-8342.

Q SONIA LEIGH, 8:30pm, $13-$15,

World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q STREETCORNER PROPHETS,

8pm, $8, M Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., 215-739-5577.

Q THE POWDER KEGS with Bad

Doctors, Roadside Graves, & Strawberry Hands, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

Q VIC RUGGIERO with Chris Mur-

ray, The Forthrights & Curtis Irie, 7pm, $6, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.

THURSDAY 7/15

³ CHESTNUT HILL BOOK FESTIVAL

JULY 23

Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215291-4919.

Sci-fi, crime novels, romances — meander through an alphabet jungle at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival and engage in panel discussions, readings and workshops. Bookworms and Sparksnoters alike can participate in any of the 25 free events, spanning from the topics of science fiction to wellness and chess brigades. Bibliophiles, rejoice! Fri.-Sun., July 9-11, free, Chestnut Hill Visitor’s Center, 8426 Germantown Ave., 215-247-6696, chestnuthillpa.com.

—Jen Rini

Q A LEO SOUND WAVE with

Starving The Tsunami, Gelatine & Galaxies, 9pm, $8, Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 215-238-5888.

Q ADAM MONACO BAND with

Shortwave Society & Bellflur, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

Q CAMERON MCGILL & WHAT ARMY with Peasant, 7:30pm, $8,

Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919.

Q JESSE RUBEN with Zach Com-

tois, 8pm, $13-$15, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

40 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |

J U L Y 8 - J U L Y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T

Q KIDZ IN THE HALL with Q JILL SOBULE & JULIA SWEENY

Q JAGUAR WRIGHT, 9pm, $15-$18,

with Justin Trawick, 7:30pm, $21.50-$33, Sellersville Theater 1894, 24 W. Temple Ave., Sellersville, 215-257-5808.

Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

Dephonic, Stalley, Writtenhouse & Akilles, 8pm, $20, TLA, 334 South St., 215-922-1011.

Q LUX PERPETUA with Creatures

Q MIRADOR with Dawn Chasers,

of Prey, The Peter Penguid Society & Kitten Disaster, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

Q SOILWORK with Death Angel,

Q KATE TUCKER with Adrien Reju

JULY 29

JULY 31

AUGUST 7

DARK FALL Movie Premiere 8.28 NO LAUGHING MATTER Feat. Bob Levy, Nick DiPaolo, GET THE LED OUT Jim Florentine, Don Jamieson, UMPHREY’S MCGEE and Otto & George COLBIE CAILLAT 9.2 THE SPECIALS QUEENSRYCHE CABARET 9.3 AUGUSTANA 8.20 TEARS FOR FEARS 9.11 BLONDIE 8.21 TOMMY JAMES 9.17 BILLY IDOL & The Shondells 8.27 IGGY AND THE STOOGES Showboat Casino For Complete Concert Listings Log On To 7.16 8.6 8.8 8.14 8.19

801 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, NJ 609.236.BLUE

HOBATSHOWBOAT.COM

800.745.3000

Show and buffet packages available!

Stay the night in VIP-style in one of our chic and exclusive House Of Blues Studio Suites.

HOB Suite packages available on Ticketmaster.com.

Management reserves the right to change or cancel this event at any time without notice. Must be 21 or older to gamble, enter and remain in a New Jersey casino or participate in any Showboat promotion. Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. ©2010, Harrah’s License Company, LLC.

& Charlotte Littlehales, 8pm, $8, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-6719298.

Q KURT VILE with Real Estate,

9pm, $12, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

Q LAURIE ANDERSON’S ANOTHER DAY IN AMERICA, 8pm,

$37.50-$50.50, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q NOBODY BEATS THE DRUM

with C-Mon & Kypski, 8pm, $10, Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 215-238-5888.

Q PAPER LANTERNS with Every-

one Everywhere, Skinny Legs & The Mechanicals, 8pm, $8, North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 215-684-0808.

MONDAY 7/12 Q LAURIE ANDERSON’S ANOTHER DAY IN AMERICA, 8pm,

$37.50-$50.50, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q BLIND MANS FATE with Her

Virgin Womb & Dark Waters End, 8pm, $5, M Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., 215-739-5577.

Q THE COKE DARES with Jukebox

Zeros & Man Like Machine, 8pm, $5, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919.

TUESDAY 7/13 Q CAGE with Hate Your Guts &

Voss, 8pm, $13, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., 215563-3980.

Q HENCHMEN with The Arkhams

& Full Blown Cherry, 8pm, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215291-4919.

Q SPENCER DAY, 7pm, $18-$23,

9pm, $7, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.

Augury, Mutiny Within & Shashbuckle, 7pm, $18.50-$50, Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-5483.

Q THE GREAT EXPLAINER with

Timeshares, Frost Watson & Hold Tight, 6pm, $6, Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.

Q THE LOST PATROL with The

Sky Drops & Captive Kin, 9pm, $8, M Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., 215739-5577.

Q WE ARE SCIENTISTS with

Lightspeed Champion & Rewards, 9pm, $15, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

Q WOODS OF YPRES with Dirt

Worshipper, 9pm, $10, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849.

WEDNESDAY 7/14 Q BLUEBOND MUSIC SCHOOL

More on:

citypaper.net

ADULT CONCERT, 8:30pm, $8, Tro-

✚ MORE LISTINGS,

cadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-5483.

AND THEY SCROLL!

foodanddrink

portioncontrol

By Drew Lazor

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PLATOS FUERTES: Chef Dionicio Jimenez’s chile en nogada (left) and pork gorditas are among the winning dishes at El Rey, Stephen Starr’s kitschy foray into homey Mexican food. The restaurant occupies the former Midtown IV Diner on Chestnut Street.

NEAL SANTOS

[ review ]

A KING THING El Rey’s theatrics don’t distract from Dionicio Jimenez’s solid Mexican fare.

By Elisa Ludwig

EL REY | 2013 Chestnut St., 215-563-3330, elreyrestaurant.com. Lunch Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner Mon.-Thu., 5-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.mid.; Sun., 5-10 p.m.; brunch Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Soups and salads, $5-$8; ceviche, $9-$12; plancha-grilled fare, $6-$10; tacos and tortas, $6$12; enchiladas, $6-$9; entrées, $6-$25. Wheelchair accessible.

I

t takes decades of lived experience for restaurants to achieve authentic atmosphere, no matter how talented the design studio. This is why Stephen Starr was ceded a true gift with his acquisition of Chestnut Street’s Midtown IV Diner space — now his More on: lively Mexican restaurant El Rey. It’s sort of the entrepreneurial equivalent to buying pre-marinated chicken cutlets, the Midtown coming steeped in its own historical juices. All it needed was Starr’s legendary knack for visual theatrics. The overall structure has been left intact. Inside, the bar has been retrofitted with Lucite platform shoes, an espresso machine and premium tequilas.

Bulbous Christmas lights, metallic car medallions and patron saint candles line the reupholstered booths, while a once-mirrored wall is lacquered with vintage movie posters. In the Midtown’s old

citypaper.net

lounge space is now The Ranstead Room, a dimly lit “speakeasy” with flocked bordello wallpaper, nudie paintings and fashionable cocktails mixed by a dapper man in a tie. It’s pure velvet-painting kitsch and Mexi-fetishism, in the can’t-fail vein of El Vez, Distrito and El Camino Real. And the flea-market finds, loud music and rec-room hideaway vibe absolutely deliver the fantasy.

What’s more hazy is the culinary concept behind El Rey, which self-identifies as a “homestyle” restaurant. The menu is broken into plates with prices in the single digits and others topping out in the mid-20s. On an early visit a server told us to expect the meal to be served family-style, and that the cheaper dishes would be smaller servings than the entrée-like especialidades.

“Why don’t they just call it small plates?” my companion said.

Most of the plates, though certainly shareable and a good value, were, indeed, small. (Maybe it’s the corrupting influence of Bucca di Beppo, but one pictures “family style” as overflowing bowls with big serving spoons, and not a salad plate’s MORE FOOD AND worth of salad with a microgreen garnish.)

DRINK COVERAGE It was also hard to feel at home when the AT C I T Y P A P E R . N E T / dishes we ordered came simultaneously, M E A LT I C K E T. setting a breakneck snack-pace. The urge to hurriedly shovel guacamole wasn’t helped by the rapid-fire intrusions of servers, nudging us to clear dishes before we were done, walking off before orders were stated and generally rushing us like there was an order quota to fill.

That’s a shame, as you will want some time to linger over the food here. Designed by Dionicio Jimenez, it’s very good, holding its own amid the distracting environs. Visitors to Jimenez’s last >>> continued on page 42

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³ IF YOU SPEND as much time obsessing about food as I do, you’ve probably dedicated a fleeting moment or two to wishing public luminaries would drop the act and just start babbling about what they like to eat. Don’t care where you’re going, LeBron — what kind of tacos do you enjoy? Are you into ginger snaps, BP chief Tony Hayward? And you, Gaga — does all that machinery attached to your face mean you typically opt for easy-to-eat fare, like smoothies and soups?

While there are a few celebs fond of discussing gustatory conquests at length (I see you, Patton Oswalt and Aziz Ansari), the dietary habits of the famous are largely squirreled away from us. Cue sibling scribes Matthew and Mark Jacob and their new book, What the Great Ate: A Curious History of Food & Fame (Three Rivers Press, July 13), a collection of quick-hit food anecdotes about highprofile folks in multiple spheres.

The Jacob brothers — Matthew’s a food writer, while Pulitzer-winner Mark is deputy metro editor at the Chicago Tribune — organized What the Great Ate in trim sections perfect for browsing. Like many overly ambitious dishes, there is filler (who doesn’t know that Paul Newman eats 50 hard-boiled eggs in Cool Hand Luke?), but for the most part Team Jacob skews informative and funny.The actors section is rife with gems — Bette Davis was so obsessed with potatoes that her friends called her “Spuds”; Dustin Hoffman’s acting career was nearly ruined by an exploding fondue pot — but I got the most pleasure out of the sports and presidents sections, if only because those who take the field and those who take office always seem to carry an affinity for bizarre food-based habits and superstitions.

As far as athletes go, Baltimore Colts tackle Art Donovan downed two bowls of consommé before beating the New York Giants for the 1958 NFL title.

Gymnast Nadia Comaneci was force-fed raw garlic by her coaches in the weeks leading to competition. Celtics legend Red Auerbach forbade players from eating pancakes on game days, believing they made his boys sluggish.

On to the White House: Calvin Coolidge was a hardcore pickle head who was often caught sneaking briney snacks in the First Pantry.

William Howard Taft downed a 12-ounce steak for breakfast every morning (shocker!). And in the late 1700s, Pennsylvania’s yellow fever-stricken surgeon general blamed Thomas Jefferson for his ailment, believing his infection was caused by dining with TJ “in the open air” on the banks of the Schuylkill right here in Philly. (drew.lazor@citypaper.net)

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It calls itself “The Broadband Phone Company” Lopsided Irritating sorts ___ Online (long-running MMORPG created by Lord British) Cable ride Airport guess, for short Turkey serving “We ___ Family” Bowling league?

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42 43 44 46 51 52 53

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LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

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✚ ©2010 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

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P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R | J U L Y 8 - J U L Y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T |

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