The 40 Year Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine helped Steve Carell earn his status as America’s favorite heartbreaking project of a leading man, his unacted-upon seething and downtrodden diction endearing him to the put-upon. That’s why it’s strange to admit that his…

For his first big-screen project since 2009’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Niels Arden Oplev goes looking for art in all the wrong places, crafting a visually breathtaking sorta-noir that looks, but doesn’t sound, the part. Victor (Colin Farrell,…

There’s word going around the East Passyunk Ave. community that some of its fathers are considering buying up a part of the block of Broad Street immediately off Passyunk (the old Lubelles, the dollar store, etc.) for a large-scale parking…

Fee-fi-fo-fum: All this CGI is dumb. It’ll be easy for practical-FX purists to hack Bryan Singer apart for the visual approach of his tricked-out fairy tale: “high gloss, low heart” goes the screed. But while the director has created what…

It’d be a stretch to compliment Beautiful Creatures for being literary, but at least its creators are functionally literate. Authors Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia play all the same cards as the Twilight juggernaut — forbidden young love, supernat­ural powers,…

Philadelphia knows Brendan Bring’Em the DJ for his Sherman’s March-like rush on this city’s best dance clubs, to say nothing of his on-stage antics (at one time or another) for Jay-Z and the Beastie Boys. Locals know Brendan Olkus the…

“One of the prettiest sights in this pretty world is that of the privileged classes enjoying their privileges.”            —Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story For 156 years, the Academy of Music has held an annual Ball and Concert to celebrate itself…

Like a high-gloss video game stretched to fit a feature-length canvas, Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad is heavy on the fireworks and light on the consequences, its association with real-life lowlifes and the white hats who want them cuffed more incidental…

Local filmmaker/screenwriter/actor (he gets taken out by Nucky in an upcoming Boardwalk Empire!) David Kushner sent me this funny video he shot at North Shore Beach Club and a few other spots around Philly. Heads up: This video features Hasidic…