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20th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival Coverage 2011 Part 1 of 3
LIKE CRAZY Everything appeared to go as planned last night at the opening of the 20th Anniversary Philadelphia Film Festival. The spacious Zellerbach (Annenberg) theater felt full and the mood was light as we were welcomed by PFS Executive Director Andrew Greenblatt, Artistic Director Michael Lerman and Mayor Michael Nutter. The film chosen to set off this milestone occasion, would seem an insignificant choice by the description – basically a romance involving two recent college grads, Anna an accessibly pretty, unaffected young woman (Felicity Jones) who is in the US on a student visa from the UK and must return upon graduation. Jacob (Anton Yelchin) is an adorable, curly-haired, furniture maker. The…
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Commentary – TOAST
This same excitement and enthusiasm for all things culinary would follow Nigel Slater into adulthood and into British celebrity. The film Toast is the early biography of Slater's life growing up in Wolverhampton, England with a very sweet, but sickly mother, who relied heavily on serving toast for meals when her meager attempts at preparing dinner would turn out unappetizing and often inedible...
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20th Philadelphia Film Festival – Day 1 – 4 Picks
I picked up my press pass for the 20th Anniversary Philadelphia Film Festival tonight! Just to get you in the festival mood, here’s the films I plan to see the first few days (Thursday, October 20th thru Sunday October 23rd). Of course, the festival runs till November 3rd, and I plan to be present throughout most of it; however, during the festival, I’ll be posting on facebook and twitter each day what film(s) I plan to see. In fact, if time runs short and things get hectic, my commentary on a few films may never make it to this blog or PFF blog, but may only be posted on facebook…
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Commentary – The Big Year
by Le Anne Lindsay, written for CINEDELPHIA.com The movie’s about a competition, but the competition is really a metaphor for trying to achieve great ambition. It’s about the pursuit of excellence, and it’s about three guys who are just trying to get outside of their normal, everyday existence and achieve something they’ve always dreamed of… – Director David Frankel (Marley & Me) excerpt from interview on BirdingBlogs.com What are these three guys played by Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson trying to achieve? A Big Year! A term in Birding (not to be called bird watching) for an entire year spent traveling around the country, up hills, down rivers,…
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Coming soon – Toast
I don’t normally plug a movie before screening it unless I’m interviewing the filmmaker; however, I was just reading the Landmark Theater newsletter and a new food in film flick is coming out that looks scrumptious! Toast is the ultimate nostalgia trip through everything edible in 1960’s Britain. Based on the hilarious and touching memoir of food writer Nigel Slater’s childhood, and set to the songs of Dusty Springfield, it’s a delicious love letter to the tastes and smells that turned a young boy into a lifelong foodie. Nigel’s mother (Victoria Hamilton) appears to have been the world’s worst cook, boiling unopened cans of food to a soggy pulp and…
