DEFICIT (2007, directed y Gael Garcia Bernal, 75 minutes, Mexico)BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal (Che from The Motorcycle Diaries) tries his hand at directing with this multi-character story of twenty-something college friends meeting at a decaying summer home. Bernal’s roving camera picks up a number of relaxed and funny performances although none overshadow the director’s own, alternating between cockiness and insecurity as a privileged son in a quiet panic as his parents are in the middle of losing their fortune. Ultimately Deficit is lacking the ambition to make much of an impact yet Bernal’s insights […]
HOT DOC: Democracy Needs Your Autograph
DEAR FRIENDS, Zimbabwe is on a knife’s edge between democracy and chaos. Election results STILL have not been released from the 29 March nationwide vote — two weeks after the polls closed — and each day, more signals emerge that Mugabe will resort to violence and fraud to hold on to power. Mugabe is unlikely to listen to the world’s outcry–but he might listen to his old friend and powerful neighbour Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa. Click below to add your name to a petition calling for the results to be released, verified, and peacefully honored, and we will […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT: Hot Chip, Starlight Ballroom + Barbary, Last Night [photos by JUSTIN ROMAN & TIFFANY YOON] CLICK TO ENLARGE
KILLADELPHIA: Nutter Declares Independence
INQUIRER: Mayor Nutter likened himself and City Council members yesterday to the band of rebels who formed this country as he signed five new gun-control laws that defy the state legislature and legal precedent. “Almost 232 years ago, a group of concerned Americans took matters in their own hands and did what they needed to do by declaring that the time had come for a change,” Nutter said as he signed the bills in front of a table of confiscated weapons outside the police evidence room in City Hall. “We are going to make ourselves independent of the violence that’s […]
REVEALED: House Of Horrors
DAILY MAIL: The White House was directly implicated for the first time last night in the decision to torture Al Qaeda prisoners. Sources say that Vice President Dick Cheney and a handful of other top politicians met in secret and agreed to the mistreatment of prisoners, according to ABC TV News and the Associated Press. As part of the decision-making process, they were given demonstrations of the techniques used. And as a direct result, the CIA was given the go-ahead to punch suspected terrorists, deprive them of sleep, and practise waterboarding — simulated drowning. According to the sources, Mr Cheney […]
PAPERBOY: ‘The Jazz Hound Edition’ Edition
BY AMY Z. QUINN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and […]
100 YEARS IN IRAQ: Six Months At A Time
MOVEON: How do you get to 100 years in Iraq? Six months at a time.
NEWS CLUES: ‘It’s A Dog-Eat-Donkey World’ Edition
ASS ATTACK: Escaped Pitbulls Fatally Maul Two Beloved Burros Two South Jersey pitbulls were captured last night after allegedly killing a miniature donkey and fatally wounding another, police said. The dogs escaped from their Vineland home Tuesday morning and eluded capture. Neal Parker, who owns a 26-acre farm in Millville, Cumberland County, spotted the two dogs running on his property. One of Parker’s beloved donkeys, a 14-year-old named Webster, was dead in a pen. Another donkey, Carolyn, 10, was mortally injured protecting its foal. Parker summoned police who searched for the dogs without success, a Millville police spokesman said. A […]
SUMSITA SEN: Dilbar Dilbar (aka The Nipple Song)
So juvenile and yet undeniably hilarious. [h/t WAYNE HAMILTON]
CINEMA: The Matriarch, The Mugger & The Little Girl
HORI SMOKU SAILOR JERRY (2008, directed by Erich Weiss, 77 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC There are few more entertaining films in this year’s festival than this enthralling look at the origins of modern tattooing. Held in highest esteem among ink lovers is Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins, who from his shop in Hawaii created the iconic American designs that decorated the chest, arms and backs of soldiers headed into battle in WW2. Hori Smoku makes a convincing case for Collins as a major folk artist and he’s as colorful as his designs, full of pranks, hard-bitten wisdom and […]
CONTEST: We Have A Winner!
Phawker reader Brian Wilkinson and his best PLUS ONE is going to see Spoon at the Electric Factory tonight! WIKIPEDIA: “The Agony Of Laffitte” single from indie rock band Spoon. It was released in 2000. The two tracks were later added to their 1998 album A Series of Sneaks when Merge Records reissued it in 2002. Seeing the potential to sell records with an up-and-coming indie rock band, Elektra Records, along with A&R man Ron Laffitte, signed Spoon to their first major record deal, which produced their second LP, A Series of Sneaks. Unfortunately, after four months of low sales, […]
Army Ships ‘Evil-Doer Detectors’ To Theaters Of War
MSNBC: The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph. The Defense Department says the portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We’re not promising perfection — we’ve been very careful in […]