POWER PLAY: In Roman Polanski’s latest film, Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigneur, the director’s real-life wife) tries to convince a theater director that she is the best actress for the lead role. City Paper grade: B+ Flaubert said that the artist…
City Paper grade: B As statements of purpose go, its hard to beat the one that opens Gillian Robespierres first feature, where comedian Jenny Slate regales an audience with a standup routine about vaginal secretions. But where a movie like…
THE KIDS ARENT ALL RIGHT: God Help the Girl, the directorial debut of Belle and Sebastians Stuart Murdoch, is just one of the films premiering at PFSs Spring Showcase. Giving Philadelphians a jump on the months to come, and a…
City Paper grade: B If the title werent warning enough, the Next on teaser at the end of Nymphomaniac: Volume I makes it clear that this is only half a movie. (Volume II is available on demand, and will…
City Paper grade: A– Imagine a grade-school diorama on the subject of Nazi Germany and youll have something approaching Wes Andersons The Grand Budapest Hotel, a characteristically stylized fable set in a fictional country that nonetheless clearly addresses the spread of…
City Paper grade: B+ Vermeer you know, but the Tim in Tims Vermeer you may not, unless youre intimately involved with the history of video-production software. What matters for the documentary by Teller, of (silent) Penn & Teller fame, is…
DARK DAYS: Kissing (step-)cousins Eddie (George MacKay) and Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) scramble to survive in this dystopian pastoral. City Paper grade: B With its angry teen heroine (Saoirse Ronan) pining for an older, frequently shirtless boy (George MacKay) in an England riven…
Jason Osder was 11 years old and living in Montgomery County when the Pennsylvania State Police dropped two explosives onto the house at 6221 Osage Ave., ending a standoff with members of the radical political group MOVE and starting a…
Neal Santos Neal Santos HOMEBOY: Tommy Oliver shot part of his debut feature in the house where he was raised (pictured here). His grandmother still lives there. First movies tend to hit close to home for their directors, but few…
ANGER MANAGEMENT: Grace (Brie Larson) soothes troubled teens as a supervisor at a foster-care facility. City Paper grade: B+ At a low ebb in Destin Daniel Crettons Short Term 12, one of the group homes residents carves Why? into her forearm with…
